Jewish community member Dan Margolies, a longtime Kansas City journalist, retired from reporting in December 2022 after four decades in the industry.
He started his career as a print journalist for the Kansas City Business Journal and The Kansas City Star, eventually making the switch to broadcast media. Before retiring, Margolies was the senior editor/reporter for KCUR, an NPR affiliate and local news radio station.
Margolies is now co-host of The Kansas City Symphony on 91.9 Classical KC (KWJC), a sister station of KCUR.
The Chronicle’s editorial intern, Jonah Kahn, spoke to Margolies last year about his career and plans for retirement. The following is an edited transcript from the interview.
Are you originally from Kansas City?
I was actually born in Brooklyn, New York. We moved here when I was eight years old when my father, senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom, the late Rabbi Morris Margolies, accepted that position here.
Have you always been interested in journalism?
When I graduated college is when I began to think of journalism, but I first decided to try my hand at being a lawyer. And when I found myself dissatisfied with practicing law, I went to “plan B.”
I’d always had it in my head that journalism was a possible vocation for me. I think I chose law school for no better reason than that was the opportunity to just wile away another three years in school and not have to think about having to make a living. What persuaded me to become a journalist was when I was out practicing law and I was making very good money, but I was very unsatisfied. I found it very unfulfilling. So I decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree in journalism.
When you were getting that degree in journalism, did you focus on radio broadcasting?
Actually, no. In fact, in the 37 or 38 years I spent as a journalist, all but nine of those were spent as a print journalist. I started out my career at... The Kansas City Business Journal and then The Kansas City Star, and I only went to enter radio when the newspaper business started imploding. So only the last nine years of my career were in radio.
In your 37 years of reporting, what were some of the most memorable stories that you covered?
There are so many different stories.[One was] working on the Courtney case, doing exposes on Robert Courtney, who was the Kansas City pharmacist who diluted cancer medications.
The story I did about Hilton Hotels Corporation bribing a member of the Kansas City Port Authority to land a casino in Kansas City was a huge one which led to indictments of various officials, including that Kansas City Port Authority official, and... Hilton having to pull up stakes and leave Kansas City.
There were stories about the illegal tape recording by the pretrial detention facility in Leavenworth, Kansas, of attorney and conversations. That was another biggie. There are so many.
Along with covering news stories, you’ve also covered the Kansas City Symphony. Can you talk about that experience?
KCUR — the station for which I was working (the public radio station here in Kansas City and NPR affiliate) — decided to launch a classical music station. It was scandalous that Kansas City had not had a classical music station on the FM dial for 20 years...
When we launched the station, our general manager, as well as the newly-appointed director of the station, my friend Stephen Steigman, [knew] of my love for classical music [and] asked me to provide informal advice about programming, etc. One of the things we were determined to do, of course, was to have a lot of local programming, including broadcasts from the archives of the Kansas City Symphony. Michael Stern, the music director, was gracious enough to agree to do that every week.
I wound up being the accidental cohost with him... Steigman was originally planning to be that host, but he went on vacation two weeks after the station launched and asked me if I could fill in for him while he was gone on vacation, and I readily agreed. When he came back, I never left the chair.
Where did your passion for classical music come from?
Basically, I grew up listening to classical music. Both my parents were huge classical music aficionados, so classical music was a constant background in my house.
Later, when I was going to law school, I roomed with a classically trained pianist so I would hear him rehearse six, seven, eight hours a day in our apartment.
Margolies’ past KCUR articles and recent classical music radio programming information are available at kcur.org/people/dan-margolies. He can be heard live on Thursdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. on 91.9 Classic KC and classicalkc.org.