Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is alleged to have ordered an audit of the local daily newspaper’s coverage of his administration, though he denies the charge in the face of emails suggesting he did. 

The Kansas City Star itself broke the story Tuesday while claiming possession of city emails proving the accusation as well as a whistleblower’s statements also confirming it. 

“Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’ administration conducted an audit of The Star’s coverage for perceived bias against city government in 2024, according to the former city staffer who performed the review and a tranche of internal emails,” the left-leaning publication reported on the Democrat mayor. 

“The extraordinary review of a media outlet’s coverage, revealed in emails obtained by The Star, is unheard of in Kansas City politics, according to one former mayor. It’s sparked concern from First Amendment advocates, who question the city’s use of government resources to audit an independent media organization.” 

The audit, named “Kansas City Star Bias Report,” according to The Star, combed through “65 articles and opinion pieces published from June to November 2024.” 

Word of the odd investigation into the Star’s coverage first surfaced in a Nov. 13, 2024 email from then-assistant city manager, and now whistleblower, Melissa Kozakiewicz. Notably, the email, which already included the finished audit, was sent to “Lucas, Lucas’ chief of staff, then-City Manager Brian Platt and a city spokesperson,” The Star reports. 

It was Kozakiewicz’s understanding, she wrote in the email, that “this spreadsheet intends to inform the Mayor’s discussions with Kansas City Star editors and others as it relates to impartiality in the realm of local journalism.” 

“The email chain does not show how the audit was assigned to Kozakiewicz,” the newspaper explains. “But Kozakiewicz wrote in another email that ‘the mayor asked for’ the review and she separately confirmed the mayor’s request in an interview.” 

“The mayor had expressed some concern on whether The Kansas City Star was fairly representing the city based on his instinct,” Kozakiewicz told The Star. “And he wanted to see if his instinct was correct, so he asked me to look into it.” 

Lucas “vehemently denied ordering the audit,” the Star writes. 

Kozakiewicz’s finding on the Star’s articles, which she reportedly shared with Lucas and Platt at the time, was that, “Overall, the review demonstrated that while the majority of articles maintained balance in terms of content perspective, source inclusion, and comprehensive understanding, there was a notable presence of bias in headline language and premise framing.”

While not illegal, the Lucas administration’s dissecting of the newspaper’s coverage, besides being “unheard of,” is all the more peculiar given the fact that The Star shares most if not all of the mayor’s leftist views. 

“It is our office’s recollection that this was voluntarily suggested and provided to us rather than requested by the mayor’s office,” Lucas said in an email. “We cannot speak to requests from other ‘City leadership,’ including those copied on the email.” 

Noting that Kozakiewicz reported to the city manager, not the mayor, Lucas said: 

“Neither our mayor’s communications staff, nor our current or former Chief of Staff, played any role in compiling any study, nor did we do anything with the study or a subsequent email drafted by the then-assistant City Manager overseeing city communications … 

“Recollections of myself and my staff at the time will differ from [Kozakiewicz’s ] as to how and why she ended up conducting an audit of the daily newspaper in our city.” 

Lucas also touted to The Star the fact that he didn’t do anything with the information from the audit. 

“The facts, however, show clearly that when presented with her data and her email, the Mayor’s office and I elected to move forward without doing anything that her report and her email may have sought for us to address.” 

The Star consulted several First Amendment academics who said the administration’s audit of the media was “a poor use of resources” and “certainly creates cause for concern.”