We’re hitting the road this month, and bringing two new staff along

The journalism business is currently obsessed with “meeting people where they are,” a phrase I can’t read without thinking of a cable company explaining that they’ll send a technician to my house between the hours of 8 a.m. and some time Tuesday.

At the Nebraska Journalism Trust, we’re trying to take the idea literally. Over the next month, that means you’ll find us in person in a college basement in Lincoln, a historic movie theater in Kearney and a ballroom in Omaha. It also means we’re showing up on the glass rectangle in your pocket in ways that respect your intelligence.

To do that second part right, we’ve added two new staff in new roles: Lily Smith and Naomi Delkamiller.

I’ll get to their specific superpowers in a minute. But first, I want to talk about why we’re spending so much of the next month on the road.

Newspaper events once meant sterile affairs in a boardroom.

We aim to do it a little differently. We call it “journalism on stage.” It means events exist as an extension of our reporting, not a side hustle for the marketing department. A triptych of gatherings coming up demonstrate exactly how many gears this organization can find.

• On March 24, we’re working with our friends (and roommates!) at the Lincoln Community Foundation to dissect the city’s child care crisis in a panel-and-Q&A format. We’ll have a Nebraska state senator, the executive director of Lincoln Littles and a parent who has struggled to find care locally. We’re blessed to have Sara Gentzler, an incredible reporter and mother of stupidly adorable twins, moderate. Register here.
• Then on April 10, we’re heading to Kearney for our Flatwater Forum. We’ll have daytime panels about pressing issues and innovative solutions in central Nebraska, like the Tyson closure in Lexington and the yawning gap between mental health needs and resources, and we’ll have a one-on-one with the state’s chief justice. Afterward, we’re hosting drinks and conversation at the Museum of Nebraska Art. Read more about the event and register here.
• Finally, on April 15 in Omaha, we’re teaming up with The Atlantic as part of their national tour. It’s a surreal thing to have a famed national magazine founded in 1857 decide that our corner of the world is where the most interesting conversations are happening. But here we are. We’re hosting both Omaha Mayor John Ewing and Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who is running the best magazine in America. We’ll have a few other special guests we can share soon. My advice: Register ASAP, as space is limited. Stay tuned for more details on our speakers and RSVP here.

Events are vital because we are so, so, so much more than a website. But we also know that 53% of you get your news from social media — a place increasingly filled with AI-generated slop and content creators who have never actually set foot in the towns they’re yelling about. (I say this with love! I’m as guilty as anyone of a good Instagram scroll sesh).

That’s where Lily and Naomi come in.

Lily Smith is our new visual coordinator. She’s a veteran of the Omaha World-Herald and Des Moines Register, and she’s here to make sure the visuals that accompany our text live up to our high standards. In a world of deepfakes and manipulated images, our promise to you is that we will make compelling visuals as key to our product as the reporting that goes into every sentence we write. Lily is going to ensure that every story we tell has that visual fingerprint, while also leading our network of freelance photographers across Nebraska. 

Then there’s Naomi Delkamiller. She’s our founding audience and engagement journalist. Naomi is here to do journalism on the platforms where people live. She’s already building video walkthroughs of our public payroll database and carousels explaining ICE transfers. When you see a Flatwater story on your feed, that’s Naomi. 

Both Lily and Naomi are graduates of two of our region’s best journalism schools — the University of Iowa for Lily and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for Naomi. Together, they represent a commitment to the idea that journalism should be as modern as the tools we use to read it.

Whether we’re meeting you in a ballroom in Omaha or popping up in your Instagram feed with a breakdown of the state budget, the mission is identical. We want to produce work that carries weight. We want to be the organization that shows up — in person or on your phone or however else you need us.

Thank you for helping us grow, for coming to these forums and for holding us to a higher standard. Our secret sauce is Nebraskans, folks who demand we go beyond performance art and deliver. You make us the best version we can be, and I’m grateful.