Sometimes vegetables can taste amazing. And sometimes a spreadsheet tells a helluva story.
Such it was when Matt Wynn, FFP’s executive director, requested and received a spreadsheet listing recent Douglas County property sales.
Boring, right? Except this spreadsheet showed him that an unknown group, “VB One,” had recently bought more Omaha homes than anyone else. And it led us on a journey that included partnering with KETV NewsWatch 7, doing dozens of interviews — and writing a story showing that, unbeknownst to pretty much everyone, an out-of-state real estate behemoth named Vinebrook Homes is now a massive Omaha homeowner and one of the city’s largest landlords.
In four days, it has become the most-read story we have ever written. (Passing this, which involves both Nebraska football and white supremacy.)
And Thursday night, we co-hosted a packed event at Fabric Lab where North Omahans — the people most affected by this flurry of Vinebrook purchases — got to ask questions, give their viewpoints and air their concerns to experts and elected officials.
We’re going to keep combing spreadsheets and paying attention to who owns what in Nebraska. Because vegetables help you grow up big and strong. Because information is power.
We’re also going to give you this story in different forms. Check out our “Quick Hit” version of the Vinebrook Story, which gives you the basics in a few short seconds.
Special thanks to Alexandra Stone at KETV, a dogged and talented journalist who did a ton of good reporting and produced this broadcast story.
And thank you to everyone who came out to last night’s standing room only event. We’ll have a story on that event up on our site soon.
Finding Jack: Cindy Lange-Kubick does it again. She writes a lovely story, unwrapping it for the reader with her usual skill and humanity.
Elle went searching for scraps of info about an old house — her family’s new home. She found much more than that. She found Jack.
I am, as always, so grateful that CLK is writing for FFP.
Swag bag: One of our reporters, Natalia Alamdari, has been pushing for a Flatwater Free Press tote bag since practically the day she started. We have needled her about this endlessly. We have given Natalia a promotion to FFP’s Vice President of Totes. (No raise for that. Sorry, Natalia.) And, because she was right… we now have totes!
Check out all our Flatwater Free Press merch, made by Raygun, a company that really supports journalism and really supports non-profits, too. Natalia recommends you buy the tote.
(By the way, if you donate monthly or annually and you are awaiting your tote, mug, or shirt, no worries: We checked with Raygun and they are working to get those orders out.)
Have a great holiday weekend.
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:
- Nebraska Public Media’s Jackie Ourada with the sobering news. Teacher vacancies doubled inside Nebraska’s schools in the past year. It’s expected to get worse. (Another interesting note in this story: New Nebraska teachers make $36k — that’s $10,000 less than a new teacher in Wyoming makes.)
- Lizzie Johnson is one of the many Nebraska kids who grew up to be an absolutely amazing reporter and storyteller. Here, she uses her talents to tell us an essential story about sisterhood and gun violence for the Washington Post. It’s simply a story that we need to read this week.
- Joe Jordan of News Channel Nebraska with the latest on Sen. Julie Slama’s lawsuit against now former gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster, who denies that he allegedly sexually assaulted her and six other women.
