Dick Cavett does not realize this, but he taught me two early lessons about journalism. I interviewed and profiled the legendary talk show host when I was all of 22 years old, a senior at UNL, doing a reporting project for the university and the Journal Star that sent me to the Big Apple.
Editor’s warning: Start scrolling down if you want to get to our journalism this week and skip a story about a young Matthew Hansen meeting Dick Cavett.
I met Cavett on a hotel patio on Manhattan’s ritzy Upper East Side, roughly one billion metaphorical miles from the Red Cloud farmhouse where I grew up.
I began the interview by asking Cavett a question. He talked for maybe an hour. I asked him another question. He talked for a half hour. The allotted time was up. I had asked two questions. We hadn’t covered his career, his depression, his relationship to fellow Nebraska great Johnny Carson. He had talked for a long time about America’s obesity epidemic. I was screwed. Nightmare visions of disappointed editors danced in my head. They had sent me all the way here! My career was over before it had begun.
Lesson 1: Scratch and claw like a wild animal. I begged and pleaded to get more time. He surely could hear my desperation. He said no, and no, and then because he’s a kind man, he said yes — which is how I got to attend an Edie Falco play with him on Broadway and then a few days later visit his house in the Hamptons. (This is a ridiculous story, I realize.)
Lesson 2: Accept the gifts that are given. I realized on the bus ride back from the Hamptons that I was trying to fit my Cavett profile — and Cavett himself — too neatly into my predesigned box. He had actually been telling me a bunch of fascinating things, and revealing himself, during that interview on the Upper East Side. I had just been too bullheaded to realize it. I sat on the bus and wrote some version of the following paragraph, which appeared in the Journal Star in 2002. It was just one paragraph in the middle of the story, but it unlocked something in me, something that helped me become the writer, and editor, I am today.
Dick Cavett does not answer questions. Instead he uses them as a starting point, molds them to fit and creates a work of conversational art — insight the humor, plaster the finish. It is this way that one simple question about what he’s up to leads from character actor Jerry Orbach to Minnesota Fats to Willa Cather to Mark Twain’s connection with Thomas Edison to Twain impersonator Hal Holbrooke to senior citizen status to the “Sixth Sense” to the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and finally, thankfully, to ticks.
He hates ticks.
“How did we get here?” asks Cavett, knowing full well how.
So, all these years later: Thank you, Dick Cavett. Thank you for being so kind to an unvarnished kid from your home state. And thank you for letting Flatwater Free Press, through the very good reporting of correspondent Leo Adam Biga, publish a new story about you today — a story about yet another phase in the life of a Nebraska boy who became an American treasure.
(Editor’s note: OK, stop scrolling here.)
Check Leo’s nice feature story on the now 88-year-old Dick Cavett.
Nebraska’s Evolving: Our fitting final story of 2024 was a story by Seacrest Greater Nebraska reporter Natalia Alamdari, who, for the last few months of 2024, intensely focused on how and why Nebraska small towns are growing.
The short answer: Immigrants.
Alamdari’s six stories let readers into the lives of the people inside six different communities — Wakefield, Columbus, North Platte, Schuyler, Grand Island and South Sioux City. Here is her Quick Hit recap of her Nebraska Evolving project and her final story, on South Sioux’s new Somali population.
Natalia will be devoting a good chunk of 2025 continuing to cover immigration. I’m so thrilled she will continue to bring us these important stories.
Upward and Onward in 2025: A stunning 982 of you sent us a holiday gift during our year-end fundraising drive. And that money added up: Nearly $250,000 total, raised just during the months of November and December, that is going to allow us to make Flatwater bigger and better in ‘25. Those small- and medium-sized donations add up. Thank you so deeply for believing in us.
Here is what your money is doing: It’s allowing us to hire a new reporter — we’re in fact hiring one, who will cover Lincoln, right now. We have also added two new fellows, one of whom will cover Greater Nebraska. They both start on Monday.
You can see all our current job openings posted here, including jobs for people with experience in event planning and sponsorships. And we’re not done, friends. We have only just begun. I will keep you updated.
When you give to the Flatwater Free Press, we hire more skilled and hardworking journalists and employees who support journalism. Together, you are powering a nonprofit newsroom that is getting bigger and better and writing more important stories. You are powering a nonprofit newsroom that is in turn helping to improve Nebraska journalism.
982 of you, including nearly 500 people who made their first gift to the Flatwater Free Press in this holiday season. Incredible. Inspiring. Difference Making.
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].
See you next week,
—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:
- A group of Nebraskans has successfully fought to change Nebraska law, forcing insurance companies to fund more of the testing to catch colorectal cancer — and the costs incurred if you have it. Small state alert: One of those Nebraskans, Margaret Stamp, is a fellow alum of the Daily Nebraskan. Way to go, Margie! Story by Zach Wendling of the Nebraska Examiner.
- Will the public continue to have access to the scenic Niobrara River? Paul Hammel of the Examiner with the latest on this twisting, turning story.
- A Lincoln native bought Michael Jordan’s iconic Chicago mansion. Stories about this one-of-a-kind purchase from the Lincoln Journal Star and and the Daily Mail. (May need LJS subscriber access for the Journal Star story.)
- Nebraskans are riding trains! Amtrak ridership is way up in Nebraska, reports Bill Kelly of Nebraska Public Media.
- Longtime lobbyist and Nebraska State Capitol institution Walt Radcliffe passed away in December. Kevin Cole of the OWH with a nice obit on Walt. (May need OWH subscriber access for story.)
- Sen. Danielle Conrad has been one of the most fascinating — and arguably one of the most effective — state senators in Nebraska in recent years. Andrew Wegley of the LJS has a nice story on how, and why, she’s doing it. (May need LJS subscriber access for the Journal Star story.)
- National story I think we should pay attention to. A Chinese intelligence agency hacked into the U.S. Treasury Department.
- And finally, an old, old story, just because I read it over the break and was reminded how fun it is. No connection to Nebraska at all. But a man essentially lived at a famous Beverly Hills hotel pool for four decades. And in 1993, the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik wrote a classic tale about a man and his second home.
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