Kansas City Star promotes Mará Rose Williams to oversee diversity, equity in coverage
The Kansas City Star has promoted Mará Rose Williams, a journalist whose voice has been a part of The Star for 25 years, to take on a new role as the newspaper’s assistant managing editor for race and equity issues.
Working alongside reporters and editors across the newsroom, Williams will be tasked with helping The Star better represent historically marginalized communities in Kansas City through its news coverage. Her work will also include community outreach to better connect with readers, especially in communities of color, through small groups, town halls and individual conversations.
“Mará has been a driving force for great journalism that serves long-underrepresented communities for the two decades I’ve worked alongside her,” said Greg Farmer, The Star’s interim executive editor. “I’m excited to collaborate with her closely in this crucial leadership position as she helps us ensure we’re meeting our mission of serving all of our Kansas City area neighbors effectively and empathetically.”
A native of New York, Williams has spent 40 years in the newspaper industry. Beginning in 1998, she reported for The Star on the education beat over the course of more than 20 years, covering public and private learning institutions in K-12 and higher education in Missouri and Kansas.
In 2020, Williams led The Star’s “The truth in Black and white” series, which revisited major events in Kansas City’s Black history that were either inadequately reported or overlooked entirely in the newspaper’s pages. In addition to a public apology to the Black community for its poor and sometimes racist coverage of the past, The Star vowed to be a better institution moving forward.
In part, Williams views the creation of the new position as making good on that promise.
“We decided that we were going to make it a mission for The Kansas City Star to do a better job covering those marginalized communities, particularly the African-American community. And if it’s going to be a mission, it has to be something that comes from the top down,” Williams said.
Since 2021, Williams has served as a columnist and member of The Star’s editorial board. There, she has used her voice to challenge racist stereotypes about Black fathers, call on Kansas City government leaders to better address homelessness and advocate for transparency in the disciplinary process for KCPD officers.
Though being a columnist has been a dream job of hers since she was a teenager, she says, Williams looks forward to the impact her new role could have on Kansas City and The Star itself.
She will work closely with the advisory board formed after “The Truth in Black and white” project to ensure it serves its mission of helping The Star reach the whole community. Her goals will include strengthening trust between the newspaper and communities long overlooked, and helping reporters and editors tell stories that make all Kansas Citians feel represented in its pages.
“You notice when you see yourself, and you notice when you don’t see yourself,” Williams said. “We’re here because those readers who haven’t seen themselves in The Star just gave up.
“We’re here to say, I’m here to say, come with us on this journey, and they should see themselves in The Star. They’ll know it when they see it.”
