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THE READER A publication of the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute Where’s God When Dave Kansas Your Startup Stops? A Story of Journalism, Faith and Entrepreneurship, the fourth annual MPJI Lecture was given on March 13th, 2017 Thanks Paul, for that generous introduction. done to pioneer new forms of journalism, to take You always bring a Minessota guy when you’re on The Wall Street Journal, to take on The New about to get a blizzard, because you know he’ll York Times, all the exciting things we had done, show up no matter what. If you’d invited someone all the talent that we had gathered together. And from Los Angeles or Washington, they would we toasted that moment and then I went home have cancelled and Paul would have been giving a and it was July 1, 2001. I woke up the next speech about his just recently completed trip to morning and I realized I didn’t have a cell phone, South America. I didn’t have a computer. There was no furniture It’s great to be here. It’s great to see some in my apartment because I had never had time to friends: friends from churches that I went to in buy any and I just sat there and said “what New York, friends from work today, friends that I happened these last five years?” It was almost like work with in Minnesota. emerging from a coma, or some kind of weird So, I have started two startups, as Paul said, out of body experience. It felt like I had done one worked and one did not, but both ended kind nothing but that job for five straight years. And I of in grim fashion for me. The first one,TheStreet. began to take stock of what that meant. com, took place during a period that is now called I’m going to talk more about what led up to Dave Kansas is executive vice the Internet 1.0 era, which for some of you in that last supper and that morning of reckoning, president for American Public Media, school might have been when you were born. But but I want to just talk about some of our themes overseeing the operations of APM’s it was a very exciting time back then. Just to give for today. We can talk about when your startup station network, national programming, you some perspective, when I first got into stops. I’m going to talk very importantly about music and news operations. journalism in the 1990’s there was a bombing at restarting. I’m going to talk about lessons learned Prior to joining APM, Kansas the World Trade Center, in February. I worked and then on a personal note talk about coming worked at The Wall Street Journal across the street at The Wall Street Journal. It was home, and what that means. serving as chief markets commentator a Friday. In 1993 The Wall Street Journal didn’t Now as Paul has probably shared with you if in New York. publish on Saturday. I called down to the news you’ve had him as a professor in class, there’s Kansas held several roles at The desk and I said “I’m ready to go out and cover this something special about growing up in the story,” and they said, “It’s Friday. We don’t publish Midwest. You long to go somewhere else Wall Street Journal, including editor of till Monday. We’ll just take the AP on Monday generally. You watch TV shows that are in Los the Money & Investing Group (2003- morning.” Angeles or New York City or maybe Chicago 2007). In that role, he oversaw Because there was no Internet, there was no once in a while, but seldom about Minnesota. coverage of Wall Street, banking, way to publish anything, in 1993. That changed in And growing up in Minnesota I always knew I finance, investing, hedge funds, 1993-94 when the Internet began to become wanted to be a journalist. I love sports. I wanted financial markets and insurance. commercialized. And I dove headfirst into the to be a sportscaster, maybe a sports writer. Kansas also served as the deputy Internet 1.0 era. It was a time of great excitement. I went to college in Minnesota initially, managing editor of The Wall Street Amazon was just starting. Companies like Yahoo because I wanted to play college football, and you Journal Online (2001-2003) and as a were just starting. There was an old company can see how big and hulking I am, and that reporter covering Wall Street, investing called AOL that was just starting. Companies that maybe wasn’t the best idea. I was the smallest guy and finance. don’t exist like Netscape were just starting. And I on my team. I barely ever played. It wasn’t that Kansas is the author of four dove headlong into it and for five years I was great of a team to begin with, and so I decided in investing books, the most recent being completely immersed in what was happening in my freshman year of college that it’s time to grow the digital age, the early parts of the digital age. up, time to be a journalist. I decided the way to The Wall Street Journal Guide to the New Fortunes were being made overnight. Company do that was just to go to New York. If I can get to Rules of Personal Finance. Kansas has models were being destroyed. New York, I can become a journalist. Naïve, also appeared on television and radio It was very exciting and very heady. And then perhaps, a little. So I applied to some schools in programs around the world, including it all came to an end, in the summer of 2001 when New York and I got into Columbia. I couldn’t the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Sky News, ABC, the Internet, what they called the Internet Bubble, believe I got into Columbia. Little did I know at CBS, NBC and Fox. burst. And I remember the last day I was at the time it had just gone co-ed and they were TheStreet.com. It was five years of intense work. I desperate for people from the Midwest. So I was went with a group of colleagues to Morton’s kind of an original affirmative action student Steakhouse in downtown Manhattan. It was coming to Columbia, I remember that on my destroyed later that year and is no longer there. application, it said “You’re accepted, but we can’t But we had what we called “The Last Supper.” We guarantee you housing.” talked about the last five years and what we had AUG 2018 | ISSUE 7 | PAGE 1 Midwestern I really am, at the end of the MOVING TO NEW service I went up to the pastor, Scott Matheney, and introduced myself. And he YORK CITY said “well why are you here?” I said, “well Now I had been on a plane for the first I am in New York because I’m going to time in my life the year before. I had never become a journalist. I am going to get a been to New York. I knew I had a friend at job here, and I am going to be successful, Princeton, and so I looked at the map and and” I mean, classes hadn’t even started, they looked close together. And I figured right, I mean I’d just moved into my dorm. if I didn’t have housing I would just take And he said “well, that’s quite refreshing the train—I’d sleep on his floor, and I’d to hear from some Midwesterner kid.” So take the train up from Princeton to go to he introduced me to the dean of the college. So I get to Columbia for the college, and I met the dean of the college midyear transfer orientation. Unlike the very next day. Robert Pollock was his many big college orientations, which are name. He was a scientist, a biologist. And filled with balloons and parties, this was he said, “I understand, young man, you two hours in a windowless classroom. want to be a journalist.” And I said “well And, at the end, I raised my hand. I was a yes I do.” And he said “where here are two Pell Grant student. I asked, how does my tickets tonight to the Columbia Dupont financial aid change if I don’t have a dorm Journalism Awards in the Low Library at room. Someone leaned over—there were Columbia.” 20 of us in the room—and tapped me on the shoulder and said “oh you must be NBC RADIO Dave Kansas.” Apparently, I was the only Now this, I didn’t realize, was a big one on financial aid. And he said “we do deal. I didn’t have much of a suit. I had an have a dorm for you, so you’re OK.” I went old blazer with the plastic gold buttons, up to the dorm that day. It was the biggest mickey mouse tie, you know, that was room I had ever lived in in my life, this about what I had in the wardrobe. I dorm room. I thought it was a mistake. I walked in and there was Peter Jennings immediately left town, so that they and Ted Koppel, Barbara Walters, and all couldn’t find out that I wasn’t supposed to these famous television journalists who be in this big room.

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