I will always remember 2025 as the year that Flatwater started to morph from a startup into a grown-up.
We grew responsibly but swiftly this year, hiring reporters at a pace that will continue into early next year. And we became one of the larger newsrooms in Nebraska, allowing us to do far more in-depth stories that we could in 2023 or 2024.
Out of necessity, we moved to a bigger newsroom. I got my very own office, with walls and a door and everything. (The walls are still way too blank.) We had our first promotion — original Flatwater reporter Natalia Alamdari became our very first investigative editor. And we had our first gigantic national partnerships — three, in fact. Omaha reporter Chris Bowling is working with ProPublica on this crucial story. Our other original reporter, investigative reporter Yanqi Xu, has a fellowship with the New York Times — you may have seen her first story. And new climate reporter Anila Yoganathan wrote her first story after we hired her in partnership with Grist, a climate-focused national nonprofit newsroom.
If you are inclined to support our work, like the dozen Best of Flatwater stories linked below, you are in luck: Our 2025 year-end donor campaign is racing toward completion. We’re soooo close to our 800-donor goal. Only a few dozen away. Help us continue to get better. Support the mission of nonprofit news.
Now, it’s New Year’s Eve. Let’s celebrate the year, and the stories, that I think represent some of our best work of 2025.
In January, your favorite food writer and mine, Sarah Baker Hansen, kicked off a year of Steak Town USA, a series of stories, reviews and rankings of Omaha and Nebraska steakhouses. I really liked her first story, a personal tale about Jerico’s Steakhouse near her childhood home.
In February, we brought you a profile of Luke Farritor, the Nebraska wunderkind and UNL student who went to work for Elon Musk and DOGE, plunging headlong into one of the most controversial chapters in the recent history of the American p0residency. Story by Chris Bowling.
Also in February, Sara Gentzler burrowed inside Nebraska’s state government, which was outwardly calm as the Trump administration tried to freeze all federal government grants. But internal emails showed that some state agencies were simmering with questions and fear.
That same month, fellow Shelby Rickert found a fascinating one in little Lamar, a western Nebraska village that decided to vote itself out of existence.
In March, we published a story about the meteoric rise of pastor Hank Kunneman, who has harnessed a combo of patriotism, love of Donald Trump and digital media savvy to build a booming religious operation in Omaha while amassing serious power in American evangelicalism. Story by Destiny Herbers.
In May, a wild scoop from Herbers: The Nebraska Public Power District bought land for $5 million. The seller? Two of its executives. Including one whose job title is chief ethics officer.
In July, correspondent Nasrin Nawa told the incredible story of how one family built a global popcorn behemoth in little North Loup.
I really liked this Chris Bowling story from July that illustrated how tax incentives were being used to build infrastructure in super-fancy neighborhoods in Valley — including to build lakes the public can’t use.
In August, Joshua Shimkus told a good story about a stench. The stink coming from a Norfolk dairy plant turned out to be about far more than that.
Also in August, Natalia Alamdari took us to the Chase County Fair, where the reality of this year’s immigration crackdown, and swirling rumors about an ICE raid — rumors that turned out to be rooted in fact — marred a band’s appearance at the fair.
In September, Omaha reporter Jeremy Turley explored the increasingly topsy-turvy world of Nebraska high school football, where a stunning 1,500 player transfers have made a few schools great — and left others very much in the dust.
Also in September, Sara Gentzler and Andrew Wegley, then a Journal Star reporter — he since has joined our newsroom — teamed up with illustrator Matt Haney and managing editor Ryan Hoffman to produce a stunning piece of work: “The Smoke from Cell B6.” (Make sure to scroll through the images at the top of this story.)
And also in September (good month!), Destiny Herbers released the first story in “Dying Blind,” an investigative piece showing that we are undercounting overdose deaths in Nebraska, and it’s costing us. (Again, scroll through the images at the top!)
In October, newcomer Lincoln reporter Emily Wolf wrote about the strange case of Lincoln Public Schools Superintendent Paul Gausman, who announced an abrupt retirement, got paid six figures by the school board to stay on as an adviser — but then appears to have done no work.
Finally, in November, Natalia Alamdari had an update on her series focused on Seward County, where the county sheriff has taken use of civil asset forfeiture — seizing money suspected to be drug-related — to a whole new level.
Well, I lied. That was 15 stories. Bookmark them. Save ’em for later. Just hurry up, already, because we have a lot more quality journalism headed your way in the new year.
Thank you for hanging out with me, and with us, this year. Thank you for supporting our big idea, our Nebraska news dream. Thank you for helping make it a reality. See you in 2026.
Happy New Year,
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.
- This is cool: A single chart, from Axios, showing the news stories America paid attention to in 2025.
- What’s the American Dream cost now? USA Today does the math, and says it will run you a cool $5 million.
- The Omaha World-Herald’s owner has a new owner. A Florida billionaire bought Lee Enterprises, the newspaper chain that owns nearly every daily newspaper in Nebraska. Story by Nebraska Public Media’s Matt Olberding.
- The New York Times had a story with more insight on that new owner, David Hoffmann, last year, as he contemplated buying American newspapers.
- Farmers head into 2026 facing uncertainty, reports Harvest Public Media’s Anna Pope.
- The vaccination rates of U.S. schoolkids are plunging, the Washington Post reports. The Nebraska map in here is interesting.
- I love Bill Simmons’ movie podcast, “The Rewatchables,” — it’s often what I listen to on drives to Lincoln or across Nebraska. Here are Bill’s picks for the most Rewatchable Movies of the 21st Century thus far.
- I also love Terry Gross, and her iconic NPR interview show, “Fresh Air.” Here are a few of my fave episodes from the year. Terry’s new co-host, Tonya Mosley, interviews George Clooney. Terry quizzes Ethan Hawke. And in April, two weeks after her husband Francis Davis died, Terry returned to the show to eulogize him as only she could.
And then Terry did a very cool thing and switched chairs, allowing herself to be interviewed by Sam Fragoso on her life and doing Fresh Air for 50 years. Really fascinating. - And finally, an incredible New Year’s Eve tip I found on X, the social media site that was once great when it was called Twitter. If you hit play on “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins at 11:56:20 PM tonight, the iconic drum fill will welcome you into 2026 at exactly midnight. Now…I haven’t tested this. But you’re welcome anyway.
