This week’s theme: Solving problems. Journalism often doesn’t get credit for this, and in fact much of the work we do is indeed focused on exposing problems. But this week’s stories, and a cool new tool we launched while I was on vacation, offer a little insight into how journalism can shine a light on the helpers while offering help to you, too.
Hi, it’s FFP Editor Matthew Hansen, back from said lovely vacation, well-rested and raring to newsletter.
Up first: A strange problem I didn’t know existed, and a young couple working to solve it. The problem, as our central Nebraska correspondent Lori Potter explains, is sheep. More specifically, the type of sheep we raise in Nebraska offer only low-quality wool, not the stuff you want in a sweater. So a whole bunch of wool shorn off Nebraska sheep goes to the landfill.
That seems silly, doesn’t it? And so Megan Landes-Murphy, with the help of her husband Tom, has started a company near Lawrence, Nebraska, (right by by hometown Red Cloud!) that’s using this wool to … make the vegetables in your garden grow healthier. Check out how here.
Taking it to the streets: Omaha, like many big cities, has a growing problem with homelessness. Now, I do not want you to read this and for one second believe that my adopted city is an urban hellscape. Because that’s bunk. And because two things can be true at once: The number of people homeless and unsheltered in the city is a) rapidly rising and also b) still really low overall when you compare Omaha to many other cities.
But we shouldn’t deny or ignore this problem, and a new group in Omaha is working to solve it by meeting homeless individuals where they are.
FFP Omaha reporter Chris Bowling wrote a really nice story on this group of doctors and nurses and how they’re helping care for the homeless, one ill patient at a time. In the process they’re hoping to make a dent in the $1.2 million we spend EVERY MONTH in county jail-related medical care for the homeless, not to mention the billions we spend on this population annually inside the American health care system.
Stay for the end of Chris’ story. It will restore a bit of your faith in humanity.
Your election roadmap: It was shocking for me, after 16 years in journalism, to leave a newsroom for the first time a few months before the 2020 election and then prepare to enter the voting booth. While at the Journal Star and The World-Herald, I was plugged in. I read the paper front to back. I could ask the courts reporter about judges. I could ask the higher ed reporter about the community college board. I sat right next to political reporter extraordinaire Robynn Tysver, who had (and has) an encyclopedic knowledge of Nebraska politicians, even if she was also fond of making one prediction one day, the opposite one the next day, then conveniently forgetting the one that happened to be wrong. (This reminds me: Robynn, we need to hang out.)
But in 2020, my first (and maybe as it turns out only) election outside a newsroom as an adult, I kind of sheepishly realized that my voting knowledge had atrophied. What ballot initiative was this again? Which judge stunk? Etc.
That’s part of the reason I’m so excited we launched our brand-new election guide. We started this year with three boards crucial to our state: the Legislature, the State Board of Education and the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Our election guide correspondent, Libby Seline, did a great job of surveying the candidates and factually laying out each race. And we did something else that I find very cool and very useful. State Government Watchdog Reporter Sara Gentzler shot little one-minute videos that explain each ballot initiative so you understand what you’re voting on when you cast your vote.
There’s info about judges. There’s answers to voters’ frequently asked questions. And frankly, the whole thing is just slick. I’m using it this year. You should check it out, too.
Thanks to our sponsor: I’m excited to say we have a new newsletter sponsor this week, whose message will appear at the bottom of this newsletter in the months to come. It’s Black Hills Energy, a company that serves 1.34 million customers in eight Great Plains and Mountain West states, including Nebraska. Natural gas is of course its thing in the Cornhusker State. (Here’s a handy-dandy map if you scroll down.) And I had no idea how long they have been around. This sentence jumped out at me from their company history: “We were there when electric lights first lit up the night in Deadwood.”
Whoa. Thank you to Black Hills Energy for supporting the mission of Nebraska nonprofit journalism.
From the Matthew Hansen vacation file: While on vacation, I loved reading Dirk Chatelain’s story on Tim Walz, as he took us into the VP hopeful’s Nebraska past, and also asked the question: In 2024, for any of us, can personal relationships transcend politics?
And I’m also loving Natalia Alamdari’s series about Nebraska’s growing small towns — and why they’re growing. It’s immigration, decades of it in some cases, and she is laying out the data and also showing how it’s changing these communities. More to come.
FlatFest is sold out! But we have other ways to get involved!: Great news for us, bad news for procrastinators. The second annual Flatwater Free Press Festival, which I have code named FlatFest, to be held on Lincoln Oct. 23, is sold out. Every single one of the nearly 400 tickets … poof … gone. Here’s more info on the event in case you bought one.
HOWEVER, for the procrastinators and those who can’t be in Lincoln that night, we have a couple other free events you can put on your calendar. First off: State of Our Union, the free event we are co-hosting with the Atlantic magazine at UNL during the day on Oct. 23. Check it out and grab a ticket.
On Nov. 2, I and a reporter will be appearing at Francie and Finch, the lovely little bookstore in downtown Lincoln. We’ll come armed with paper copies of our second annual commemorative edition — the only time you will see the Flatwater Free Press stories together in a slick newspaper-style format.
And Omahans, tentatively on Nov. 9, we will be coming to the Bookworm in Omaha to do a similar event. Come, hear a little mini version of the FlatFest program, chat us up and get an FFP commemorative paper copy.
Put these on your calendars and I will have more info as these appearances near.
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
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 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, was already the single biggest buyer of Nebraska farmland in recent years. FFP reporter Destiny Herbers wrote a great story about it last year, in fact.
But now the church is buying up more Nebraska farmland. DTN’s ag reporting legend Chris Clayton with that story. - A really big scoop from Journal Star reporter Chris Dunker. Nebraska business leaders invited to join a governor’s roundtable to discuss business issues are also being asked to pony up serious money — $10,000 — for the governor’s campaign committee.
- Here’s an interesting one with a Nebraska angle. Nationally, supporters of ballot initiatives that expand abortion rights in states are wildly outraising opponents. But not in Nebraska, where it’s close. The Associated Press with the national story, which includes a little info on Nebraska.
- Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert didn’t hold back on State Sen. Mike McDonnell this week after McDonnell, a fellow Republican long rumored to be a mayoral hopeful, wrote an open letter questioning the financing of Omaha’s streetcar.
- I know a colleague whose child may have a surgery delayed because of this national shortage of IV fluid tied to our recent hurricanes. The New York Times with that story.
- New polling from NPR’s Midwest Newsroom digs into Nebraska’s upcoming ballot measures. Read the story, published by Nebraska Public Media, about the polling and what it reveals.
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