In Kilgore, Nebraska, the quick snip-snip of a pair of scissors has sparked a lawsuit. It has exposed division between the small-town school and the large Native reservation to its north. And, to the Lakota family at the center of the story, this seemingly simple act — part of a routine lice check, school lawyers say — reverberates across generations, reminding them and many others of a time when their hair was sheared in violation of their beliefs, and against their will.
Talented Nebraska writer Chris Bowling dives deeper into this story for the Flatwater Free Press, explaining why this snip-snip isn’t so simple at all. Explaining how the darkest chapters of our past can come barging into our present. Read A school sees a lice check. Lakota people sense centuries of repression.
(For the story behind our story, see How We Did It at the bottom of this newsletter.)
And in faraway L.A., the most successful Nebraska TV personality you have never heard of watches as “Jeopardy” makes news for all the wrong reasons. Harry Friedman, an Omaha boy, long served as the powerful executive producer of that iconic game show, as well as “Wheel of Fortune.”
Veteran Omaha freelancer Leo Adam Biga talks to Friedman and tells his unlikely life story, from the halls of Omaha Central High School all the way to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Read The Nebraska TV legend you’ve probably never heard of.
What we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
- In Norfolk, Daily News reporter Lauren Wagner did the hard work to answer an important question: During the new school year, how many Nebraska students are required to mask up? (Short answer: Not many.)
- A crucial piece of journalism from the Lincoln Journal Star: In the wake of UNL campus protests that followed an alleged rape, reporter Andrew Wegley discovered that campus police have investigated 48 alleged rapes or attempted rapes… and made an arrest in exactly one.
How we did it: Trying to tell all sides of the hair-cutting story
It’s easy to say that you value getting every viewpoint into a story. Sometimes actually doing it is much, much harder.
To illustrate, we wanted to pull back the curtain on Bowling’s story on the small-town hair cutting for a moment, and the reporting required to get the school’s point of view into this story.
The school superintendent didn’t want to comment. Neither did the school secretary who allegedly cut the girls’ hair. Bowling then called, emailed, or messaged every school board member. They all refused to comment or didn’t return those messages.
We then figured that the school’s legal team would provide us a statement. They decided not to, which is of course their right. This is an ongoing civil lawsuit, and sometimes lawyers and their clients are worried that whatever they say may affect the case.
We could have gone with the story as is, without any voice from the defendants. We didn’t.
Instead we urged Bowling to find a member of the community who would go on the record. We called our own sources in Cherry County. And Bowling, to his credit, eventually found a retired rancher who is friendly with the school secretary and her family. That interview, of George Johnson, added valuable context to the story. It gave the reader insight into the school secretary, or at least Hill’s (very positive) perception of the secretary.
We also worked to show the school’s point of view by getting a hold of the lawsuit and the responses from the district itself. Those laid out the district’s legal case and included some factual claims that otherwise wouldn’t have appeared in the story.
In a perfect world, we would have talked to the school secretary herself and made her a bigger part of the story. As is so often the case, our world isn’t that.
Bottom line: We’re always going to take the extra steps to present the fullest and clearest picture possible. Even if it delays the story. Even if it’s hard.
Thank you for reading.
—Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
