In September of 2019, there was a small mumps outbreak at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. I had just started my term as editor-in-chief of The Gateway newspaper, and I thought it would be fortuitous to buy a large bottle of hand sanitizer for the newsroom. I wrote a little note with scripted handwriting: “don’t get…
In early March, Salvador Robles, associate publisher of Omaha’s The Reader, was planning for just the kind of story that would resonate with the alt-monthly’s readers: the hunt for the perfect margarita. But after the coronavirus outbreak, the story turned into an article on how to make margaritas at home. The publication’s film writer produced…
When longtime Omaha World-Herald reporter Cindy Gonzalez had her first child in 1991, her water broke in the newsroom On deadline, she finished the story after she got to the hospital. In a parallel scenario in 2015, former Omaha World-Herald copy editor Courtney Pitts Mattern would finish her assignments during health emergencies even when she…