Star Opinion readers wonder: Just who are Joel Mathis and David Mastio, anyway? | Opinion
The editorials and columns you read on these Opinion pages come from a variety of people, including both staff and people who don’t work full-time for The Star, but are writers we trust.
I have mentioned before how journalism is a sacred trust between readers and news outlets, and trust is earned by getting to know us. You probably know our staff writers, Melinda Henneberger and Toriano Porter very well. There’s also our longstanding op-ed editor Derek Donovan, and then there’s me. But what about the writers you see often, even on a weekly basis?
Just who are Joel Mathis and David Mastio?
Mathis has written for the Opinion section for quite a while, and David is pretty new. Many of you have written that you would like to know them better. Introducing both to our readers is long overdue.
David Mastio
Mastio is a former opinion editor for USA Today in Washington, D.C., but has Heartland roots. He began writing for The Star in October. He lives in Nebraska, where he has written and edited for independent centrist startups. I talked to him about his Kansas past:
“The KC Star has been part of my reading since I was a kid. My family has lived in St. Joseph for a century and my dad was always interested in news and politics. He ran for mayor once after putting up a giant protest gorilla to loom over downtown St. Joe. When I stayed on my great uncle’s farm outside Wichita, he’d get The Star when he went into town for errands. It was the big city paper that kept my family in the loop.”
David brings years of veteran opinion writing experience and an informed conservative point of view. His take on politics, and national and regional issues, will expand the viewpoints on these pages.
“I think my conservative values and national conservative political connections give me an advantage over more liberal journalists. Months before Donald Trump won the 2016 election, I said he’d win because Hillary Clinton was such a joke. I’ll try to bring that advantage to Kansas and Missouri issues and politics as I write every week,” Mastio said.
Still, he’s not a one-note writer, especially regarding the 45th U.S. president.
“Don’t misunderstand, though: I am no Trump fanboy. I live in the reality where he didn’t win the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021, was an antidemocratic outrage. I share the values of Kansas and Missouri conservatives, but I think to be ascendant, we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be.”
Joel Mathis
Mathis is a familiar name to Opinion readers. He has been writing commentaries for The Star since May 2022 and lives in Lawrence. In addition to writing for The Star, he contributes to The Wichita Eagle. He has written and edited content in Kansas, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Despite growing up in a conservative central Kansas community, he usually shares a left-of-center viewpoint in his columns.
“I think about those folks — and how they might respond to my opinions — every single time I write. So I’ve given myself an impossible task: I want to give a left-of-center point of view about Kansas and Missouri politics, but I want to do it in a way that doesn’t add unnecessarily to the stark polarization that so often divides Americans and makes our Thanksgiving family meals so fraught. (Put another way: I don’t necessarily want to make you angry. I do want to make you think.)”
Sometimes, Mathis said, that means acknowledging the limits to his point of view: “I took Kansas and Missouri Attorneys General Kris Kobach and Andrew Bailey to task recently for challenging FDA decisions — but admitted I might not feel the same way if they were trying to reverse a Republican administration’s actions.”
Mathis said he takes the “journalism” part of opinion journalism seriously. “I hope that means you learn something new when you read my column — either some bit of news about our elected officials that hasn’t been widely disseminated, or some bit of context that makes that news more understandable. And once that’s done, I want to persuade you that my way of looking at the situation is the best one.”
I’m happy to have these two stellar writers contributing to The Star’s Opinion team. As always, we welcome your opinions, too, through letters and columns. Got an idea? Submit it here.
