Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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John Heaston opens the door to a brick warehouse next to Johnny's Cafe in South Omaha and walks through rooms holding his life's work. "It's kind of a hot mess," says the 52-year-old longtime publisher of Omaha's alternative newspaper, "The Reader." Here's a garage bay holding empty green newspaper boxes emblazoned with the word, "FREE." Here are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with yellowing copies of "The Reader" and "El Perico," a separate publication that Heaston owns. Sticky notes...
While there is no debate as to WHO created the original chocolate chip cookie, there is some "controversy" as to HOW this classic cookie came to be. According to a story on nestle.com: "It all started back in 1938. Ruth Wakefield, who ran the successful Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts, was mixing a batch of cookies when she decided to add broken pieces of Nestlé Semi-Sweet chocolate into the recipe expecting the chocolate to melt. Instead, the semi-sweet bits held their shape...
Years ago, on late evening car trips, Dad would turn the dial to WLS or KOMA or WOAI - radio stations based in Chicago, Oklahoma City and San Antonio. The radio’s light illuminated my parents’ 1961 Ford Galaxie and later, the 1974 Ford Gran Torino. Turn the dial, watch the red peg move across the screen, landing on 890 or 1490 or 1200 and listen to the family singalong, even though static may have served as a scratchy filter. Once home, I’d move the dial until one of the stations - usual...
A Nebraska family has plowed more than $1.6 million into the Lincoln mayor's race, an unprecedented sum and latest burst in a multi-year deluge that, at the federal level, rivals the political spending by a famed Las Vegas casino magnate and a Silicon Valley titan. It's not the Nebraska family you think. It's the Peed family and its business, Sandhills Global – not the Ricketts family – that have eclipsed all other donors while trying to help former State Sen. Suzanne Geist, a Republican, ous...
The "Summerland Advocate-Messenger" brought home 17 awards from the Nebraska Better Newspaper Contest. Recipients were announced Saturday, during the Nebraska Press Association awards banquet at the Cornhusker Marriott Hotel in Lincoln. SAM competed in Class A, which features weekly newspapers with circulation up to 699. Entries were published in 2022. The paper took top honors in five categories, including agriculture advertisement, featuring Automated Dairy Specialists; signature page,...
Should I or shouldn’t I? That is this week’s question. Should I dole out money to enter newspaper contests? Or, instead, should I reinvest those entry fees in my employees and business? It’s a conundrum, for sure. It’s not that I don’t like entering contests. In the past, I have submitted pieces to the Nebraska Press Association’s and Nebraska Press Women’s annual contests. Back when creative writing filled my teaching days, several pieces of poetry were entered - and won - contests. Eve...
The powers that Google and Facebook have over economic and political power in society – especially over the news industry-has caught the attention of lawmakers in Washington, DC. After a close election and many worries over the quality of public debate, many ask if social media have played a role in the misinformation that erodes our free press and plagues our democracy. Nowhere is this power more daunting than in the social media giants' use of news organizations' reporting, which the p...
Talk about sticker shock. Imagine my surprise a few days ago as I grabbed a carton of eggs from the cold case at the local store: $7.45 for a dozen large eggs. Usually, grandson Jorden supplies eggs, fresh from the poultry pen, but his supply was depleted. Needless to say, I changed my menu plan and returned the carton to the shelf. Accordng to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index has seen an 8.2% increase in the last year. Electricity prices shock a lot of us, with a...
It's been more than two years since I received my last paycheck from a newspaper company. In that time, I've had the opportunity to advocate for local newspapers that remain relevant to their communities. That advocacy keeps running into tiresome arguments that are as yellow as old faded newsprint. No matter what facts you use to extinguish them, they find a way to flare up later. During National Newspaper Week, consider the following collection of statements that numb the mind, along with a suggestion: When you encounter them, just turn the...
NFPW Communicator of Achievement director Karen Stensrud and NPW COA director Ruth Brown contributed to this article. LuAnn Schindler of Clearwater received the 2022 Communicator of Achievement Award from the National Federation of Press Women. This prestigious award has been given for 65 years. Schindler received the honor during a celebration at the organization's annual conference, held June 23 to 25, in Fargo, North Dakota. Now in its 85th year, NFPW is a nationwide organization of...
When it comes to saving local newspapers, the solutions won't be found in web metrics, ad rates or shrinking news holes. The solution, seemingly simple yet terrifying complicated, is for newspapers to reconnect with the people they're supposed to be serving. That's the purpose of The Relevance Project, a national effort intended to make local journalism so relevant to people's lives that papers will once again become an essential purchase. The Newspaper Association Managers, a coalition of...
BRETT WESNER Chair of the National Newspaper Association, a community newspaper organization and president of Wesner Publications, Cordell, Oklahoma A little-noticed initiative by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, and six other senators would boost local jobs, accelerate sales and improve economies. The Local Journalism Sustainability Act, S. 2434, is designed to help local news media support their newsgathering missions. One provision goes far beyond offering aid to community newspapers,...
Volume three, number one. Man, woman and child: It felt good to type those numbers in the flag of this week's edition. Two years ago, Scott and I turned a vision into reality and founded the Advocate-Messenger and ColdType Publishing, LLC. It started like a whirlwind, and some days, it still feels like we're being carried from place to place via the wind, whether it's covering a community celebration, school event or a monthly board meeting. We look forward to telling the stories important to...
The Summerland Advocate-Messenger finished third in the Class A digital sweepstakes of the Nebraska Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest. Awards were announced June 17, via video presentation. SAM staff members submitted entires in 58 categories focusing on writing, photography, advertising, digital, design and creativity. According to the Nebraska Press Association, which sponsors the contest, more than 3,100 separate entries, representing nine dailies and 66 weeklies, were judged by...
Ken Paulson Director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University When government fails, it’s the rare public official who says, “Oops. My fault.” That’s human nature, particularly for officials in the public eye who may have to run for office again. No one wants to be held directly responsible for letting the public down. Case in point is the recent catastrophe in Texas, when unexpected winter storms left 4 million homes without power, ruptured pipes and tainted the water supply for many. Texas’ energy grid essential...
The coronavirus pandemic has laid much of the American economy on its back - but a bright spot made the disaster less crippling than it might have been. That is the Paycheck Protection Program, which funneled money to workers through small businesses. More than five million small businesses took the PPP loans, representing 50 million jobs, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress in June. It persuaded small businesses to keep people on the payroll instead of laying them off. That helped...
A photo which appeared in the June 25 edition of the Advocate-Messenger received the title of top news photo for the third quarter by the National Newspaper Association. The photograph, taken by LuAnn Schindler, shows 2020 Clearwater graduate Lauren Behnk hugging her niece and nephew following the school's graduation ceremony. Schindler titled the photo, "Sweet success," and included the following cutline: Lauren Behnk receives a hug from her niece and nephew, Cady and Andy Klabenes, during...
MIA AZIZAH | Nebraska News Service When the novel coronavirus swept the globe and made its way to the communities across Nebraska, community newspaper publishers like Kurt Johnson of the Aurora News-Register, witnessed how the global pandemic became a challenge much closer to home. As businesses shut down and positive cases were confirmed in the Aurora area, Johnson said he felt the public angst grow. And in his 20 years of running the weekly newspaper with a circulation of 2,500, he faced the...
MATTHEW ADELMAN National Newspaper Association president We need to get through this time and tighten our belts, just as we have through two World Wars, terrorist attacks and other epidemics Newspapers in the United States have traveled rough seas to the First Amendment freedoms we enjoy today. From the colonial Stamp Act through wartime censorship to today, when thousands of newspapers were slammed with the public health emergency known as COVID-19, people who work for newspapers have never had completely smooth sailing. Now most of the...
Since we opened the Advocate-Messenger, Scott and I have fielded several questions about the inner workings of the newspaper, so after discussion, we decided to take this opportunity to respond. One of the first questions we were asked is if the Advocate Messenger is a legal newspaper. The answer is yes and no. We formed a limited liability company when we created ColdType Publishing and trademarked our name, so the business, itself, is a legally-operated business according to the State of Nebra...
The Summerland Advocate-Messenger, a new community newspaper, makes its print and online debut this week. The paper is a trademarked publication owned by ColdType Publishing, LLC, and operated by Scott and LuAnn Schindler, of Clearwater. LuAnn is a veteran journalist and journalism educator. She ran a successful freelance business and worked as a regional correspondent for the Norfolk Daily News before assuming the role of managing editor at the Clearwater Record-Ewing News. She has received wri...
