The Northeast News is a free community paper delivered to 9,000 households per week in Historic Northeast Kansas City, produced each week by your neighbors.
Michael Bushnell, Publisher
Michael has been the Publisher of Kansas City’s Northeast News for nearly 25 years.
Shortly after moving to the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood in Kansas City’s Historic Northeast community, he was elected President of that neighborhood association and served two terms, one seven years, another three years. In 1996 Michael resigned from his corporate communications job in Overland Park, KS, and accepted a position as the Executive Director of the Northeast Chamber of Commerce. It was through this position he learned that the local community newspaper was for sale.
He and his wife Christine purchased The Northeast News in 1998 and quickly converted it from a weekly tabloid shopper to a viable community news source that serves Kansas City’s Historic Northeast community.
In March, 2021, the Northeast News team made the decision to publish a newspaper with a blank front page to show what it would look like if the community lost its locally owned news source. That story was picked up first by CNN which carried over to coverage by such international news organizations such as The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Seattle Times and the Associated Press Newswire. In all, the story was picked up by media outlets all over the globe and still garners attention over seven months later.
At the 2021 Missouri Press Association convention the paper was the recipient of fourteen awards for excellence in Journalism as well as Advertising and Marketing. In 2020 the paper secured the association’s Best in Show award for the development of advertising and marketing campaigns for small business clients in the Historic Northeast community.
Abby Hoover, Managing Editor
Abby graduated with a BA in Mass Communications and Journalism from Kansas State University in 2017. She interned at the Northeast News for the summer of 2017 and was Interim Managing Editor in the fall of 2019 before moving to Hudson, NY, where she was the City Reporter for Columbia-Green Media’s Register-Star and Daily Mail.
She returned to Kansas City and The Northeast News amid the pandemic in June of 2020 and purchased a home in North Indian Mound with her husband, Tucker.
She loves listening to her neighbors tell stories of the old neighborhood, and her favorite part of the job is interviewing people who are passionate about their work. When she’s not reporting, you can usually find her walking along Cliff Drive with her dog or drinking coffee at a nearby café.
Dorri Partain, Customer Service
A graduate of Central Missouri State University, Dorri wrote a freelance feature column for the Northeast News from 1998 to 2006 and joined the news staff in 2016. Dorri moved to the Northeast in 1986 and loves all the parks, especially the Indian Mound and Cliff Drive.
She has two sons and three cats. Dorri also has an extensive collection of matchbooks, and other “relics” that she enjoys researching for the Remember This weekly feature.
Bryan Stalder, Creative Director
Bryan grew up in Northeast. He and his wife have been raising their children in the Indian Mound Neighborhood since 2003. He served on the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association board from 2011-2019.
Bryan began drawing editorial cartoons for the Northeast News in 2008 and took over the Creative/Art Director role in 2017. His rebranding of the newspaper and his ad designs have garnered numerous top awards in the state of Missouri.
Bryan supports the small businesses in Northeast by shopping and dining locally as much as possible, and his favorite thing about Northeast is all the creative talent that exists here.
