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The Johnson County Post is the most trusted and turned-to source for community news in Kansas’s most populous, most prosperous county. Founded in 2010 as the Prairie Village Post, we’ve grown to the point that we now reach approximately 200,000 users each month and have more than 8,000 paying subscribers.

We know that if we’re going to ask readers to pay for our work, you have to be able to trust us and our process. The information on this page gives an overview of who we are, how we approach our work and the standards we hold ourselves to — and hope you’ll hold us to as well!

Table of contents

• What do you cover?
• What do you believe in and value?
• What makes you different?
• Who are the people covering the community?
• Who owns the site and how do you make money?
• What is sponsored content?
• Do financial considerations influence your coverage?
• What’s the company’s history?
• How do I contact you?

What do you cover?

The Johnson County Post produces consistent, reliable coverage of nearly every city in Johnson County.

We publish several new stories every weekday. Our coverage mix includes:

• Business and restaurant openings and closings
• Things to do in Johnson County
• Johnson County libraries, parks and government
• City government in Overland Park, Olathe, Shawnee, Lenexa, Prairie Village, Merriam, Mission, Leawood, Roeland Park, Fairway, Mission Hills, Westwood, Lake Quivira, Westwood Hills and Mission Woods
• Candidates’ positions on the issues facing the community
• Crime, fires, accidents and police investigations
• Local public school districts
• Obituaries for Johnson County residents
• Updates on traffic and road work

We DON’T publish:

• Opinion columns or editorials
• Consistent coverage of high school sports
• Consistent coverage of Spring Hill, Gardner, Edgerton and De Soto.

Is there something you wish the community knew more about? Let us know so we can consider it for our mix!

What do you believe in and value?

Our goal is to be the “user’s guide to Johnson County” — a resource available for anyone who wants to make sure they’re plugged in to what’s happening in the place they call home.

We started the site because we believe the most populous and prosperous county in Kansas deserves its own source for community news. And while our operation resembles a traditional community newspaper in a number of ways, it also takes a distinct approach designed to give Johnson County residents more of the coverage they value — and less of the frustrating fixtures of traditional “media.”

The fact is, what’s traditionally been of interest to journalists often isn’t of interest to the people they supposedly serve. That’s why we’ve built a distinct newsroom culture that puts Readers First. That means focusing on:

• Making it quick and easy to get caught up. Keeping up on your community shouldn’t feel like a chore. We know how busy Johnson Countians’ lives are. That’s why we put so much effort into producing coverage that’s easy to consume — whether you’re at home, at work or on the go.
• Focusing on facts, not opinions. In the social media era, there’s no shortage of opinion out there — but finding straightforward, reliable information is harder than ever. That’s why we focus on straight-to-the-point, just-the-facts coverage of Johnson County. There’s no clickbait. No op-eds. No hot takes. Just dependable, useful information about your community.
• Prioritizing the topics our readers value most. Putting Readers First means covering the issues that matter to average members of the community — not to power brokers, political parties or journalists. Our coverage mix is largely a response to what our readers tell us they want to see when they visit the site or open our newsletters each day.

We take these values seriously. We hold ourselves accountable to them. And we want you to hold us accountable to them as well.

If you see something on the site that you think doesn’t meet these standards, please call us out. If you see something in our coverage that you believe is inaccurate, please let us know. And if you have a question about anything we do, please ask it!

What makes you different?

It’s no secret that people’s opinion of “the media” is pretty low these days.

They’re upset by opinion pieces designed to stoke conflict. They don’t feel like they can trust the information journalists produce. They’re overwhelmed by bad news they feel like they can’t do anything about. And they’re flustered by the sheer volume of information coming their way.

Simply put: They’re fed up.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

After watching the legacy media that used to serve the area wither away and the national media devolve into partisan echo chambers, we knew that doing business as usual wasn’t going to be a path to success. That’s why we take a Reader First approach to reporting and presenting the news.

We work to deliver straightforward, easy-to-read, truly local coverage that lets you get caught up on the information that interests you most in about five minutes each day.

That’s it. Five minutes and you’ll feel up-to-speed and connected to your community!

Who are the people covering the community?

The Johnson County Post currently has six newsroom employees.

• The newsroom is led by editor Kyle Palmer. Kyle joined the company in 2020 after serving as the News Director at KCUR. The Post has seen substantial growth reach and subscriptions under his leadership. Kyle holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in policy, organization and leadership studies from Stanford University. He lives in Overland Park with his wife and their two sons.
• Leah Wankum has been with the Post since 2018. She started her career with the Post covering northeast Johnson County and then helped lead our expansion into Lenexa and Shawnee. Leah is a native of mid-Missouri and attended the University of Central Missouri. After college, she worked as a reporter and editor for the Richmond News in rural Missouri. Leah lives in Overland Park with her husband, two daughters and cats.
• Juliana Garcia has been a reporter for the Post since 2020. A Roeland Park native, she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. She covers northeast Johnson County for the Post.
• Lucie Krisman has been a reporter for the Post since 2021. A Tulsa, Okla., native, she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. She lives in Mission. She covers Johnson County business and retail development news for the Post.
• Kaylie McLaughlin has been a reporter for the Post since 2023. A Shawnee native, she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Kansas State University, where she was editor of the Collegian. She covers the cities of Overland Park and Olathe for the Post.
• Andrew Gaug has been a reporter for the Post since 2023. A native of Ohio, he came to the Post after working as a reporter for the Saint Joseph News-Press for more than a decade. He covers the cities of Shawnee and Lenexa as well as the court system for the Post.

Who owns the site and how do you make money?

Post Publishing, Inc., the company that publishes the Johnson County Post, is privately held and is owned by Jay Senter and Julia Westhoff.

The company generates revenue in three ways:

• Through subscriptions, with readers paying for full access to our content and premium newsletters
• Through advertising and sponsored content
• Through legal notices published in our weekly print edition.

Subscriptions account for about 60% of our overall revenue. Advertising, sponsored content and legal notices make up the remainder.

This subscription-heavy revenue mix incentivizes us to produce coverage that people value and enjoy.

Or, to put it another way: Because most of our money comes from our readers, giving you the information you need and want is our top priority.

Some readers ask why we run advertising and sponsored content on the site when we charge for subscriptions. There are a number of reasons. For one, we’re sensitive to the importance of making fact-based local reporting available to as many Johnson Countians as possible. That’s why we make our subscriptions considerably more affordable than most products in the space. A subscription that gets you full access to all of our work costs $9.25/month or $92.50/year. As a point of comparison, the Kansas City Star charges $15.99/month or $159.99 per year.

Eliminating advertising from the site would require us to significantly increase our subscription prices, putting them out of reach for some people. (Of note: We do provide all readers access to a limited number of free stories each month. And anyone can access all of our coverage through the Johnson County Library system.)

What is sponsored content?

Apart from our traditional news coverage, we offer local businesses and organizations the opportunity to pay to publish sponsored stories on the site. Those stories are always prominently labeled “SPONSORED POST.” Sponsored content is written by the sponsor and is not held to the standards of impartiality that our independent journalism is. Our newsroom is not involved in the creation of that content.

As always, with questions or comments, please contact us here.

Do financial considerations influence your coverage?

We know some people think all news outlets intentionally sensationalize stories or stoke fear to generate traffic so they can generate more ad income — but that’s just not how we operate.

In fact, we know that if we don’t maintain our reputation for trustworthy, straightforward coverage, people won’t become subscribers. And sensationalism is not a recipe for building trust!

We do pay close attention to what news stories you seem to find most valuable. If a certain topic or type of story routinely gets more readership than others, we’re likely to allocate more of our staff’s energy to doing that type of work. We value your feedback, and our subscription model depends on our ability to provide coverage that is consistently interesting, useful and valuable. We will be in better shape financially if we offer more of what you find useful and less of what you don’t want.

Our sales operation is wholly separate from our newsroom operation, so advertisers have no influence over our editors’ and reporters’ coverage decisions. The publisher does not participate in the newsroom’s weekly story planning meeting and exercises no control over day-to-day newsroom decisions.

As always, with questions or comments, please contact us here.

What’s the company’s history?

Back in 2010, it was pretty difficult to find timely coverage of the communities in northeast Johnson County. The Kansas City Star, which for years had provided robust coverage of the area in weekly inserts, had closed its Johnson County bureau. The Johnson County Sun, which had been publishing for 60 years, was on the verge of shutting down.

Jay Senter and Julia Westhoff, who met while working at their college newspaper, had just moved back to Jay’s hometown of Prairie Village and noticed how difficult it was to find out what was happening in their neighborhood. So they launched a website called the Prairie Village Post to cover city government, schools and business in Prairie Village, Fairway and Mission Hills.

Within a couple years, interest in the Post’s mix of community coverage had grown to the point that residents of neighboring communities were asking for the site to cover their areas as well. Dan Blom, a former newspaper editor and grad school classmate of Jay’s, joined the company and helped expand coverage into neighboring cities in northeast Johnson County. Dan retired from day-to-day work on the site in 2016.

By 2016, the site’s coverage footprint had grown to the point that it made sense to change the name to the Shawnee Mission Post to better reflect its reach.

In 2020, Kyle Palmer took over leadership of the newsroom and Jay moved full-time into the role of Publisher.

In 2024, the company merged the operations of the Shawnee Mission Post and its sister publication, the Blue Valley Post, into a single site, the Johnson County Post, which now covers the whole county.

Contact information

• Have a question for our news staff? A thought about something we should be covering? A correction you’d like to suggest? You can contact Editor Kyle Palmer at kyle@johnsoncountypost.com or 913-439-6586.
• Have a picture you want to share? You can email it to stories@johnsoncountypost.com
• Interested in placing an ad or sponsored story on the site? Contact Sales Director Adam Carey at adam@johnsoncountypost.com.
• Have a question about our full access digital subscriptions? Need help getting logged in? Reach out to our staff at support@johnsoncountypost.com and we’ll be in touch soon.
• Interested in subscribing to our weekly print edition, which features a limited selection of stories published on the website? Email us at printsubscription@johnsoncountypost.com and we’ll send you an invoice for the $25 annual subscription fee.