There’s a place in Nebraska in 2021 where you can rent one of 30,000-plus DVDs, including films you will never find on Netflix or really anywhere else in the world. Or you can rent one of the 7,000 VHS tapes. Or, if you really beg, a Betamax. Betamax! Or you can walk past the crucifix and the portrait of Jesus Christ of Nazareth on your way to, ahem, the locked back section of the store. It’s like taking a time machine back to the 20th century, to a time before the Internet ruined everything, before Netflix murdered the video store, even before Blockbuster murdered the independent video store before Blockbuster itself got whacked by streaming services.
When I first heard about Chris Logan’s Call Video during a listening session in Norfolk, all my storytelling spidey senses tingled. Wait…there’s a video store still in existence in Nebraska? We have to tell the tale of this unicorn, I thought. So we did. Joe Duggan, longtime Journal Star and World-Herald reporter and one of the finest Nebraska journalists in existence, did the honors. We found a strange Norfolk institution and its owner struggling to stay alive in the streaming era.
Teamwork makes the journalism dream work: One of the founding principles of Flatwater Free Press is we collaborate, not compete. It’s borne out every week, when we send the stories like the one I posted above to media outlets around Nebraska. (Dozens of newspapers, TV stations and radio station websites use our stuff, reaching 400,000 sets of eyeballs a week, according to Universal Information Services.)
And now we have our first example of an honest-to-goodness collaboration with a Nebraska media outlet. Tonight, both KMTV Channel 3 and Flatwater Free Press will release a joint story. It’s not groundbreaking or Earth shattering. It is…important. Check out the Channel 3 broadcast this evening and/or surf over to our website ‘round 6 p.m. to read it.
One last thing: Remember that these stories are your stories, and the Flatwater Free Press could always use your help. Do you know of a story that needs to be told? Send us your news tips using this form or via [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:
- “The day of his death, the 15-year-old wished his mom a ‘Happy Mother’s Day,’ then said he was leaving to get her flowers. It would be the last time he spoke to his family.” The World-Herald’s Todd Cooper with an important story about the toxic brew of teenagers, drugs and guns.
- It’s not your imagination, reports Matt Olberding of the Lincoln Journal Star. The tornadoes this week were unprecedented in Nebraska history.
- Speaking of climate change…the Nebraska Public Power District has set a goal to go carbon-neutral by 2050. The McCook Gazette with the story.
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