By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief
Good morning! If you haven’t heard yet, opinion editor Clay Wirestone’s new book drops this week. It’s about the power and value of opinion writing, as told through midcentury Kansas newspaper editors and Clay’s experience at Kansas Reflector. You can catch us Tuesday night at the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, where I’ll interview him and he’ll sign copies of the book.
Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector
OPINION
Commentary titans shaped Kansas communities for generations. They still have much to teach.
By Clay Wirestone
I remember two bronze plaques in an Emporia park, each cast with the anguished writing of a father recounting the death of his 16-year-old daughter. I was only 8 years old, but the words of William Allen White in Emporia’s Peter Pan Park left a permanent impression.
I didn’t understand what a newspaper editor or columnist did back then, but I surely knew White was important. A bronze bust of the Emporia Gazette editor and publisher watches over the park from between those bronze plaques, after all.
My family only lived in Emporia a year, nearly four decades ago now, but I never forgot how one man captured a profound event of his life with indelible words. Those plaques, I’ve come to believe, represent the beginning of my lifelong fascination with commentary writing and opinion journalists. I became a writer and editor myself, and now my book on the topic has arrived in bookstores.
Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor
Doctors and hospitals to see lower Medicaid payments in three dozen states
New federal rules likely will force three dozen states to reduce their annual Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals by a total of more than $50 billion — potentially shrinking the number of providers willing to see Medicaid patients, according to a new analysis.
The analysis in the peer-reviewed Health Affairs estimates that the 17 states with the highest provider reimbursement rates will have to cut their spending by between 10% and 25% of their overall Medicaid budgets. Medicaid is the joint state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Kansas Reflector staff will participate in the following free public forums.
7 p.m. Sept. 29, Raven Book Store in Lawrence. Book release event for opinion editor Clay Wirestone’s “Opinionated.” Editor-in-chief Sherman Smith will moderate.
6:30 p.m. Sept. 30, Round Table Bookstore in Topeka. Opinion editor Clay Wirestone talks about his book and the latest news. Host: Round Table Bookstore.
6 p.m. Oct. 12, Riverbank Brewing in Council Grove. Opinion editor Clay Wirestone talks about his book and the latest news. Host: Flint Hills Books.
5:30 p.m. Oct. 19, Frank Carlson Library in Concordia. Host: NCK Voters.
6 p.m. Dec. 3, Prairie Star Restaurant in Manhattan. Host: League of Women Voters of Manhattan and Riley County.
If you're interested in having us talk in your town, email Sherman Smith at [email protected].
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