Andale Gross, AP’s race and ethnicity news editor, named The Star’s managing editor
Andale Gross, a longtime journalist who recently worked as the race and ethnicity news editor at The Associated Press, has been named The Kansas City Star’s next managing editor.
The job marks a homecoming for Gross: A native of Moberly, he earned a journalism degree at the University of Missouri and started in the industry in 1994, covering Olathe schools out of The Star’s Johnson County bureau.
“It’s a full circle moment,” said Gross, who starts Monday.
Gross will become the first Black editor to hold the position of managing editor. He will be The Star’s second-highest-ranking editor and be in charge of day-to-day newsroom operations.
Describing himself as humbled and honored, Gross said he plans to work hard to ensure underrepresented communities feel like they are even more a part of The Star.
At the AP in Chicago, Gross helped shape the understanding of some of the nation’s most significant stories in recent years, from the election of President Joe Biden to how the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately ravaged communities of color.
Gross, who will be based in The Star’s Crown Center newsroom, takes over the role that was last held by Greg Farmer, who became executive editor earlier this year.
“He brings a boundless passion for serving our Kansas City neighbors and a deep respect for the journalists who do this essential work,” Farmer said. “I know he will be instrumental as we deepen our connections in this community.”
Gross grew up in Moberly in Randolph County, about 35 miles north of Columbia. It’s where he met Lisa, his high school sweetheart. Now married, they have two adult sons.
After his first stint at The Star, which lasted until 1996, Gross worked at newspapers in Iowa and Ohio before coming back to Kansas City in 2006 as an AP reporter.
He then spent a decade as an AP editor on a regional desk that included overseeing coverage in Missouri and Kansas. During that time, he also traveled as a reporter and story planner to Ferguson, Missouri, after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown.
Gross worked as the AP’s race and ethnicity news editor for nearly four years, overseeing a team of reporters who cover race across the U.S. and world. They reported on spot news but also took a step back to do more “courageous” and meaningful work, he said.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, there were anecdotes about how the virus was devastating communities of color, but little data existed. So members of Gross’ team built their own database in one of the first attempts to examine the issue.
Gross is also proud of how his team covered the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer and the national racial reckoning that followed. He directed and edited stories that asked questions like, “What is a Black life worth?”
“For 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it was simply carrying a toy handgun. For Eric Garner, it was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes,” began one story that a reporter on his team wrote. “For Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and Ahmaud Arbery, it was the minor offenses of jaywalking, failing to signal a lane change and trespassing on a residential construction site.”
More recently, Gross’ team produced a series of stories in May centered on how the legacy of racism “laid the foundation” for health inequities that Black Americans face today.
Gross was a leader in the news agency’s inclusive storytelling program, where he and others ensured that stories were being told across various communities and with diverse sources.
At The Star, Gross hopes to help produce journalism that resonates across the many “Kansas Cities in Kansas City,” such as in the LGBTQ+ community and immigrant community.
“So that when people look at The Star, they can see themselves in it,” he said.
