Gregory S. Reeves, award-winning Star staffer, dies
By Mike McGraw The Kansas City Star


Gregory S. Reeves, who spent 31 years as a reporter, database editor and crime blogger for The Kansas City Star, died Thursday of complications from ALS.

Reeves, 57, was an internationally recognized expert in computer-assisted reporting. He analyzed computer data for several award-winning projects at The Star, including a series on the U.S. Department of Agriculture that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, and a series on the NCAA that won a George Polk Award in 1997.

“Greg was an excellent investigative reporter and an international leader in computer-assisted reporting,” said Brant Houston, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. “And he was wonderful colleague to work with — witty, passionate and always outraged by the injustices suffered by the average citizen.”

Last year, Reeves took on a new role as the newspaper’s crime blogger and quickly turned “Crime Scene KC” into one of the nation’s most popular crime blogs, with more than 600,000 monthly visitors. Crime Scene KC won an EPpy Award in 2006 for the best media-affiliated news blog in the United States, and a McClatchy Newspapers President’s Award in 2007.

Acting as the newspaper’s first crime blogger — chronicling homicides as well as the bizarre occurrences that spark community dialogue — was a perfect fit for Reeves. In the 1980s, he covered the Kansas City Police Department during a particularly violent time in the city’s history, writing straightforward yet poignant accounts of ordinary people touched by crime.

“I first met Greg when he was a police reporter and immediately realized that he had a photographic memory of every crime he had ever covered, down to how the body was positioned,” said Mark Zieman, The Star’s editor and vice president. Zieman said Reeves was an old-school journalist who mastered beat reporting, became a self-taught database expert when computers entered the newsroom, then eagerly embraced the Internet and “on his first try launched a world-class blog.”

“Greg was truly a master at his craft,” Zieman said. “He adapted to every reporting platform, brought home a ton of major awards and, most importantly, his work changed lives.”

Reeves grew up in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago, graduating in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in Germanic Language and Literature. He was constantly teaching himself new skills and was fluent in German and Chinese, in addition to numerous computer languages.

He also worked for newspapers in Belleville, Kankakee and Ottawa in Illinois before joining The Star in April 1976.

In 1977, Reeves was named one of the first three U.S. journalists to travel and report in West Germany under a John J. McCloy Fellowship from the American Council on Germany. More than 20 years later, Reeves spoke at the founding meeting of Netzwerk Recherche, a group of German investigative reporters.

Besides being fascinated with world history and global politics, Reeves studied statistics and mathematics to help him better understand the computer data he spent so much time analyzing. He was a patient newsroom mentor and was always happy to repeat for his math-challenged colleagues how to calculate percentages.

He was diagnosed in 2006 with ALS, the same disease which claimed his father’s life.

Reeves died at his home in Overland Park. He leaves two children, Rebecca Reeves and Jeffrey Reeves, and their mother, Bonita Reeves.

Cremation and a service for family and close friends is scheduled for July 7.

Donations are being accepted in Reeves’ name for a fellowship to support a research assistantship at Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., a nonprofit journalism training organization at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Donations may be sent to IRE at 138 Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, MO 65211.