Steve Vockrodt Email & Phone Number

Kansas City, Mo, Us

Kansas City, Missouri, United States

The Midwest Newsroom is a collaboration of NPR and member stations to bring audiences investigative journalism in the public's interest in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska. In this role, I will be doing my own reporting while also editing, guiding and training other reporters with their stories. I am based out of Kansas City.

Kansas City, Missouri Area

In my current role I cover business, local politics and investigations for the Kansas City Star.Investigations have included:• The circumstances of the death of a 10-year-old boy on a water slide and subsequent discoveries about lax regulations and oversight on amusement parks in Kansas.• A story on opaque tax credit laws in Kansas as part of a larger team investigation into government secrecy in Kansas.• A story with a colleague that uncovered an illegal kickback scheme involving a political figure.• An in-depth examination of an airport terminal project that started with a proposed $1 billion no-bid contract.

Kansas City, Missouri Area

On the Kansas City Star's business desk, I covered economic development matters (real estate projects, development incentives and planning and zoning issues), publicly traded companies and local government.

Kansas City, Missouri Area

Since coming to The Pitch in 2013, I've used Kansas City's alternative newsweekly's platform to break investigative news stories, including ones on capital punishment in Missouri, the circumstances of an officer-involved shooting in a Kansas suburb and financial mismanagement of school district in Kansas City. My main areas of interest are local government, real estate development (particularly the kinds that leverage taxpayer support), criminal justice issues, housing policy, campaign finance, elections and other matters of public interest. Other coverage areas include education, culture and occasionally sports.

After more than four years covering legal affairs, I was asked to cover the Kansas City Business Journal's real estate beat. I took the opportunity, knowing that the key to understanding a city's culture and behavior is understanding real estate decisions patterns and history.My coverage ranges from real estate transactions to enterprise reporting of how economic development evolves in Kansas City. Government coverage is a key element to my reporting, as political subdivisions in the Kansas City almost always have a direct influence in real estate and economic development. I cover development agencies like the Kansas City Tax Increment Financing Commission, the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and the Port Authority, among others.

My primary focus was legal affairs coverage in Kansas City. This beat had me covering the business of law firms, such as mergers, trends, financial performances and general business activities of some of the most important and oftentimes opaque companies in town. I also covered civil and criminal lawsuits, real estate foreclosures, Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and mediation decisions.In addition to the legal affairs focus of this position, I covered Kansas City's advertising and marketing industry, as well as K-12 and higher education.