Mr. Ptacek Goes to Washington: KSHB’s Russ Ptacek lands his dream job — and it isn’t here
A year ago, a middle manager at KSHB Channel 41 was making reporter Russ Ptacek miserable. So Ptacek hired an agent to get himself out.
The job offers didn’t come quickly, and the manager left KSHB. Meanwhile, Ptacek, Keith King and Ryan Kath molded themselves into Kansas City’s finest TV investigative team.
But the agent eventually found an offer that Ptacek couldn’t refuse. By the time you read this, he’ll be in Washington, D.C., searching for tips as the leader of a newly formed investigative unit for WUSA, a CBS affiliate in the nation’s capital.
“I’m sad to leave,” Ptacek says. “I never thought I’d say that.”
The man this paper once dubbed “Best Bulldog” didn’t turn into a lame duck once he signed the WUSA contract. Ptacek’s investigation into exploding glass bakeware aired Friday, February 17. The following Monday, KSHB broadcast his six-month investigation into the disappearance of Belton teenager Kara Kopetsky. A cadaver dog hit on a scent in a home, and a feud erupted between secret sleuths and the Belton police. And on the day of his exit interview with The Pitch, Ptacek was breaking news that the General Services Administration would move employees out of the Bannister Federal Complex — the facility whose history of deadly toxicity Ptacek helped uncover.
“It’s crazy,” Ptacek says. “It’s like there’s a magnet here that will not let go of me.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, Ptacek talks of his unfinished business, where to get a good cheap suit, and his biggest fear about the move.
