It started with a single name on a whiteboard. And, after months of detective work, that whiteboard was covered in an elaborate web of lines and arrows, a web that connected underage victims to suspected sex traffickers.
It sounds like a scene from a Netflix drama. But it’s real life — and it’s occurring inside the offices of Project Harmony, which has teamed with Omaha police to catch predators and help their prey.
This week, FFP reporter Jeremy Turley, for the first time, takes us inside this one-of-a-kind effort. It’s nabbing awful people, sentencing them to long prison stays, and also, crucially, helping traumatized young victims reclaim and restart their lives.
Lost in Lamar: Shelby hadn’t even applied — and didn’t probably realize it — but she got the job as our latest University of Nebraska-Lincoln reporting intern when she approached me at the tail-end of our FlatFest event last fall. She asked when we would hire the next intern. I gave her a non-answer, because I didn’t really know and had other things on my mind.
She asked again. I deflected her question again.
She planted her feet and asked the question she wanted answered a third time, still polite, but making it clear she wasn’t leaving without a straight answer.
Cripes, I thought. This college punk is gonna make a fine reporter.
Today, Shelby Rickert makes her debut in the Flatwater Free Press with a story about the downfall of little Lamar, Nebraska, which recently voted itself out of existence. The story is sad, and it is also a little bit funny, and also much bigger than Lamar itself. What makes a small town die? What — and who — can give it life, like in Exeter?
Way to go, Shelby. And fair warning — if this young journalist plants her feet in front of you, be prepared to give her a real answer.
Rumor mill churning: If you are a member of an immigrant community, or connected to one in any way, you have seen the social posts in the past few weeks. ICE agents are raiding Schuyler. They just entered a church in Madison. Or in Columbus. Or they’re taking people off the sidewalks on South 24th Street in Omaha.
But they haven’t, say both local police and immigration advocates — two groups of people not always on the same side.
Fear and a complete absence of actual information from federal officials is driving fake news on social media. In at least one frustrating case it’s been irresponsibly amplified by a Nebraska media outlet. (I cannot fathom why, three weeks after posting a news story which has since been disproven several times, Lincoln KLKN Channel 8 still hasn’t taken their story down.)
This week, FFP senior reporter Natalia Alamdari slices through the fog for us. What’s the reality of the immigration crackdown in Nebraska? What’s rumor? And what impact is this having?
The Nebraska news map: In case you needed more proof that nonprofit newsrooms like this one are desperately needed in states like Nebraska, I present to you UNL Professor Jessica Fargen Walsh’s really cool — and really sobering — Nebraska news map.
Among the highlights/lowlights: Nine Nebraska counties have no working journalists in them. Some 55 (?!) counties have two or fewer journalists working in them. And there’s only one professional news organization in this state providing local news in Spanish.
This is really important work. Learn more about it here.
Thank gosh for the local reporters we have across the state of Nebraska. They’re doing important work. In some cases, heroic work. And let me be clear: Flatwater Free Press is only one part of a solution.
But it’s undeniable we need more of us — study after study shows that both local corruption and political polarization go up when journalism disappears.
I’ll post more stories on the Nebraska News Map as they appear. In the meantime, I can tell you that looking at it revs my desire to keep fighting for nonprofit news, especially in places where it’s desperately needed.
Questions wanted: Some of our best story ideas come from readers, and they typically start with a burning question that just cries out for an answer. Have a question that our reporters need to look into? Complete this form or reach our newsroom at [email protected].
Sincerely,
—Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- Nebraska Public Media has been doing a fine job covering the flurry of DOGE-related moves that are now impacting Nebraska and Nebraskans. Here’s their story on a UNL program that trained first-generation teachers to work in small towns — a program that just got axed.
- And here’s NPM’s story on the pork industry growing concerned about recent government layoffs at an animal meat research center in Clay Center. The cattlemen are also concerned, reports NTV’s Steve White. And the Journal Star’s Chris Dunker has more info. (May need LJS subscriber access to view that last story.)
- Rep. Mike Flood talked to Punchbowl News this week about what he clearly wants to be his signature issue in Congress: Housing. Can there be bipartisan agreement around how we eliminate housing shortages and make it more affordable?
- Why is Douglas County putting juveniles in confinement for longer stretches of time? The World-Herald’s Molly Ashford with an important investigation. (You may need OWH subscriber access to view this story.)
- An explosion at Broken Bow’s power plant Thursday left residents without power on the worst possible day, reports KSNB Channel 4. It still hadn’t been totally restored early Friday morning.
- The backers of the Nebraska Environmental Trust are fighting back against a Gov. Pillen budget plan to use money set aside for conservation, wildlife habitat and local recycling for other purposes. Story by the Nebraska Examiner’s Paul Hammel, who is allegedly semi-retired, though I’m not sure I believe it.
- Omaha Mayoral Candidate Mike McDonnell attacked the city’s homeless coordinator during an event, calling her a “DEI hire” while seemingly unaware that she was sitting in the audience. The World-Herald’s Chris Burbach has the story, including McDonnell’s explanation that he didn’t say this because she’s a woman. Mayor Jean Stothert isn’t buying it. (You may need OWH subscriber access to view this story.)
- And speaking of DEI: Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City got hammered by other senators the floor of the Legislature this week after he wrote a column that, among other things, insinuated that a former Federal Aviation Administration official was hired because he had “a high amount of melanin in his skin.”
Stories by NPM’s Fred Knapp and video by 10/11 News Now.
