This week is one of my single favorite weeks of Flatwater Free Press journalism in the three years we have been doing this. It’s a potent journalistic triple threat of a week. It’s a week that really shows who we are, what we do and how we do it. And cherry on top: We won a national award this week, from a group that recognizes FFP and its community — that includes you — are doing big things right here in Nebraska.
OK, no more horn tooting. I’m excited to share these stories. Let’s get into it.
Ricketts’ Riches: The single biggest request we have gotten since we started Flatwater Free Press is some version of a request involving the words “Pete Ricketts” and “money.”
People have some general sense that the family’s political giving mattered. And there have been good stories written about this. But we wanted to do something more holistic.
So we partnered with an award-winning data journalist, Syracuse University professor Alex Richards, who took a deep dive into Nebraska campaign finance records and related records going back 30 years.
Then FFP state government watchdog reporter Sara Gentzler searched for patterns in the numbers. She interviewed dozens of sources — advisers, experts and politicians of every stripe — and worked to understand how the family’s money impacted Nebraska politics.
The result: Our first story in, “Ricketts’ Riches.” This will likely be an occasional series we publish on and off for a few months.
Learn how much the family poured into Nebraska politics, how they donated it and what impact it had.
And also learn, in a short second story, that the Ricketts’ family isn’t the single biggest donor in Nebraska politics! (This includes the list of the biggest Nebraska donors of the past quarter century.)
Don’t have time for all those words? Read our “Quick Hit” summary, which we will update as we move through the series.
So, data-backed, investigative journalism that holds power to account. That’s our bread and butter. Threat one of this week’s journalistic triple threat, if you will.
Forbidden fruit: Journalistic curiosity is a strange and wondrous thing. Case in point: Natalia Alamdari, FFP’s Seacrest Greater Nebraska reporter, wrote the following story because her friend stepped on something funny.
And you should definitely read the resulting story, about something that’s gooey, and caramel-y, sometimes tasting like coffee, sometimes like vanilla, sometimes like tropical Starburst, and you can definitely not find it in a grocery store, but you can find it if you put on your hiking boots and hunt it down with some obsessed Nebraskans.
When she first told me about her story idea, I had one question. “What in the hell is a pawpaw?”
Today, she explained. And it’s lovely.
It’s a fascinating, off-the-beaten-path story that can interest people in Gretna, Grand Island and Gering. Why, that’s the second part of FFP’s journalistic mission, what we call “stories that bind the state together.” And threat two in this week’s journalistic triple threat.
Whose land is it? And, on Wednesday, FFP investigative reporter Destiny Herbers published a fascinating story about who owns land on the Santee reservation. You may assume that the Santee own the land on the Santee reservation. And you would be very wrong.
It’s an important and shocking tale. It came about because Destiny has really immersed herself in both land issues and Native stories. And because she properly recognized that we should partner with Grist, which is doing a bigger national project on land taken from tribes.
So that’s the third threat in our triple threat. A story about a population that’s historically ignored by American media. A story told from the Santee point of view.
Horn toot: On Wednesday night we learned that we had won two awards from the Institute for Nonprofit News. The INNY’s, they are called. The Oscars of the nonprofit news world! I guess that makes us Meryl Streep.
Because the aforementioned Destiny Herbers and Yanqi Xu won a national reporting award for their series, “Who’s Buying Nebraska?”
And then the Flatwater Free Press won an award given to precisely one newsroom. We’re the Startup of the Year — essentially the top new nonprofit newsroom in the country.
It is at times like these that I get a little tingly.
Because I remember that, three years ago, Flatwater Free Press was an idea, a figment of two overactive imaginations, a dream Matt Wynn and I made reality thanks to committed allies.
I remember when we were borrowing office space in Hanscom Park Studio’s office. I remember when we got our first “real” office and it was a swear-to-God-I’m-not-making-this-up supply closet. I remember when Yanqi and Natalia agreed to join us — FFP’s single best day. And I remember as we started doing good journalism, and started raising money from regular folks like you, and we started hiring more great journalists, started getting bigger and better, bigger and better, bigger and better …
Dream to reality. Dream to the best new nonprofit newsroom in the country. In three years. In the state I was born in, the state I will die in, Nebraska. Home.
Thank you to every one of you who has donated money to support our nonprofit newsroom, who has read this newsletter, who has told your friends and loved ones about this thing called the Flatwater Free Press. We simply would not be doing this without you. And we’ll continue to try our very best to be that triple threat — to do good work for you.
Thank you to our sponsor: This week, it’s KIOS, Omaha’s National Public Radio affiliate. I drove to Lincoln this morning, listened to 91.5 on my FM dial the whole way, and it was clear as a bell. Thank you to KIOS for supporting the mission of Nebraska nonprofit journalism.
Questions wanted: Like this week’s campaign finance story, some of our best story ideas come from readers. They typically start with a burning question that needs 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:
- It’s a big week, or maybe a big non-week, in the continued on-again, off-again fight to change the way Nebraska votes for president. The Nebraska Examiner’s Aaron Sanderford reports that there’s a renewed push to change the state to winner-take-all — a move that would end the practice of each congressional district being allotted one electoral vote, a practice that the Omaha area appears to love very much. But other reporting in the Journal Star and The World-Herald suggests that the Nebraska Legislature still doesn’t have the 33 votes needed to make the change, despite increasing pressure on Republican lawmakers. And the national media started to take notice, especially because that lone electoral vote in the Omaha area could matter this year.
- Last year was not a good one for Nebraska’s most vulnerable children, reports the Omaha World-Herald’s Martha Stoddard.
- Midwest states like Nebraska have spent millions sending National Guard troops to the US/Mexico border, reports NPR’s Midwest Newsroom, appearing here in Nebraska Public Media.
- Omapod host Tony Bock had WOWT journalist Erin Hartley on this week for a two-part convo that takes you behind the scenes at how she does her job. Part 1 of the convo. And Part 2.
- And finally, settle in. I mean reallllllllllllllly settle in. This is a very long and stunningly good read from one of my favorite writers and authors, Michael Lewis. He’s become famous for taking seemingly mundane stories — the vagaries of the bond market, the housing crisis and baseball statistics — and bringing them to life in books like “The Big Short” and “Liar’s Poker” and “Moneyball.”
Now he’s doing a similar thing with the bureaucracy of the federal government. Boring, right? It absolutely isn’t. Give it a read if you have some time this weekend.
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by:
