One of the many reasons I wanted veteran Nebraska reporter Henry Cordes on our staff here at Flatwater is because he can tell a big story with expertise — with authority — while explaining the most pressing issues facing our state.
That’s exactly what he did in his newest pair of stories out today, stories focused on how and why Nebraska is no longer growing. We’re not growing jobs, not growing economic development, falling behind our neighbors.
First off, Henry did the grunt work to show this is actually true, doing a decades-long analysis that illustrated that we were killing it as a state until around 2010, and then started getting clobbered around 2011.
And he then talked to a bevy of CEOs, economists, experts, people who really know things, to answer the looming questions. Why is this happening? Why does it matter? And what the heck should we do now?
The story, “Stuck in Neutral,” is a must-read for anyone who cares about our state’s future.
Enjoy it as your entree, and then may I offer you as dessert a story Cordes wrote about how the Nebraska Department of Economic Development — including the arm meant to attract new businesses to our state — has been shedding employees and shrinking rapidly for the past year. (Though it’s worth pointing out, as the story does, that the DED is still bigger than it was in 2019.)
Danger Beneath Our Feet: Flatwater Omaha reporter Chris Bowling, working in partnership with ProPublica, continues to do crucial work on one of our biggest city’s biggest longtime public health crises — the toxic metal still buried in our yards and sometimes coursing through our bloodstreams.
The lead deposited into the soil made east Omaha the biggest Superfund site of its kind in American history and prompted a gargantuan EPA cleanup of 27 square miles of the city. Chris is examining whether it worked.
Other states require these tests. Nebraska doesn’t. That’s a serious problem, both local and national lead experts say.
Want to understand this issue? Here’s a handy-dandy Q&A with a dozen answers to your most frequently asked lead-related questions.
I Fought the State and the State Won: We had two good stories this week on two groups of people — both groups among the most vulnerable Nebraskans — who are trying, and failing, to get help from the state in which they live.
On Tuesday, Destiny Herbers brought us the story of hundreds of severely disabled Nebraskans who have had their benefits slashed under a new state system.
A stunning 237 families have appealed this decision. The state to date hasn’t reversed a single case. Really good one from Destiny.
And Thursday, Andrew Wegley has a story stemming from the wild case of Becky Stamp, the court-appointed guardian charged with three felonies after allegedly stealing money from a man in her care, who despite this continues to be the court-appointed guardian of people deemed incapable of caring for themselves.
Andrew’s new story: The state’s own guardian system, the thing that would make it easier to skip using private guardians like Stamp, is undeniably broken, say lawyers and the program’s former director. It turned down 98% of all requests in the past year!
Cripes.
We’re in kindergarten: Matt Wynn, the executive director of Nebraska Journalism Trust, Flatwater’s parent nonprofit, and my boss, noted the following fact Wednesday night: Exactly five years prior, on April 15, 2021, he signed the articles of incorporation birthing our nonprofit newsroom into existence.
He said this into a microphone while standing on a stage before 300-plus people at a sold-out event to kick off a “journalism on stage” event we co-hosted in downtown Omaha with a magazine you may have heard of, The Atlantic. Editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who runs what’s easily the best news magazine in America, flew to Omaha to be there. Flatwater journalists and Atlantic journalists talked to a rapt crowd about their work.
Earlier on that same day, we co-published that story posted above with ProPublica, part of Chris Bowling’s important series on continued lead contamination in Omaha’s soil and in our kids’ bodies. ProPublica is the most decorated national nonprofit newsroom in America. Chris’ story was the top story on our website, and on theirs.
And then a few days before that, we hosted yet another 225 people at the World Theatre in Kearney, where we interviewed experts on the Tyson closure in Lexington and many more pressing issues facing Nebraska on the 99-year-old, lovingly restored vaudeville house’s stage.
I say all that to say this: Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have even considered that this is how far we could get in five years of existence.
From the stage, Goldberg called the Flatwater Free Press “the gold standard” of state-focused nonprofit newsrooms. I nearly fell off my chair.
There has been a lot of hard work, much good journalism, many sleepless nights and even more laughter in these last five years.
And I just wanted to tell you, editor to reader, that I am so glad to be a part of this, and I’m so thrilled that you are, too.
We will be doing much more to celebrate our 5th birthday later this year. Stay tuned for exciting announcements.
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
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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:
- Some breaking news this morning about the famed “third-largest city in Nebraska,” Memorial Stadium. The University of Nebraska’s Board of Regents will now consider a $600 million plan to rebuild and revamp the old war horse. Stories and design renderings from the Omaha World-Herald’s Sam McKewon and KETV’s Jake Anderson. (You may need World-Herald subscriber access to view the World-Herald story.)
- It’s easy to forget in this current moment, when President Trump regularly casts conspiracy-fueled doubt on our system of voting — particularly mail-in voting, which he wants to end — that many rural Nebraska counties, all of them deeply Republican, use mail-in voting as their sole system. A key story from Nebraska Public Media’s Aaron Bonderson this week, which cuts through the noise and shows that, in rural Nebraska places that have gone to mail voting, voter participation has skyrocketed.
- More wildfires in Nebraska this week. Story on one near Sumner from KNOP in North Platte. Really scary to see this happening so early in the year. Earlier this month, Flatwater’s Anila Yoganathan had a good story on the conditions making Nebraska wildfires more likely.
- The Plains Sentinel, a new Nebraska outlet run by former Gov. Pillen adviser and conservative organization leader John Gage, is doing some stories I think are worth paying attention to. Here’s one this week, showing that Republicans are dominating the fundraising race for statewide offices, while Democratic candidates are faring very well raising money in races for the Legislature.
Both sides are focused on that magic number 33 in the Legislature, which is the number of Republican senators who, if they act in lockstep, can overcome any Dem-led filibuster to pass a bill into law. - Here’s an absolutely wild one from the Plains Sentinel … two challengers running in the primary for a western Nebraska legislative seat are MARRIED. The couple, one a Republican and one a political independent, tells the Plains Sentinel’s Matt Johnson that they are entirely comfortable with whichever one of them advances to the general, presumably against incumbent Sen. Brian Hardin.
Damn, much respect to Jessica and Sam Landers. Sarah and I have a hard time picking a restaurant. - The talk of our newsroom this week, the story most wildly read by our journalists, was about free bread. Yes, you read that right. The search for the best free restaurant bread in America, to be more specific. It’s from The Atlantic, and I’m sharing it here as an example of the offbeat and wildly creative stories you get right alongside their coverage of the war in Iran.
(Settle in, it’s a long read, but worth it.)
That’s a gift link, because I’m a subscriber. You should be, too. It’s truly a great magazine. - AI now “runs” a store in San Francisco. It hasn’t gone perfectly, reports NBC News.
- Here’s a fun one: Longtime humor columnist Dave Barry and some other authors play in a band. That band just happened to play at the grand-opening bash of the new Omaha library at 72nd and Dodge. Check out the story and stay for the photo of Barry lying in the middle of Capitol Avenue:
- And finally, I love a food and drink site called the Midwesterner, run by Kansas City-based food writer Jed Portman. This week, I had the distinct pleasure of being interviewed by him for a story on, wait for it, Nebraskans’ love of red beer. (I have been to a few tailgates in my day.) The site is focusing on Dorothy Lynch this week because it would have been the real Dorothy Lynch’s 113th birthday. The Midwesterner published a story today by Portman’s partner, fellow food writer Liz Cook, focused on making one of those seemingly bizarre recipes involving Dorothy Lynch.
Both The Midwesterner and Cook’s site Haterade are great follows, sayeth me, who follows both of them. - And lest I forget, we ran our own ode to Dorothy Lynch, by the incomparable JJ Harder, last week. Check it out if you missed it and listen to JJ’s interview with Omapod host Tony Bock.
