Covid-19 morphed from a concern to a global problem to a local one, spreading from handful of states to more than 30 in a week. As the virus and the story spreads, getting the news to people is a difficult job, one made worse by the day as the story becomes more political, which can…
Storytellers often include scenes in which a detective or family member visits a room filled with work that the missing or deceased abruptly left behind. The last 15 years have been ripe with reports of newspapers disappearing and journalists vacating newsrooms. From 2004 to 2018, almost 1,800 local newspapers closed in the United States, according…
In the hours after Iran attacked two Iraqi military bases that housed U.S. troops in January, social media predictably was rampant with rumors. Old and doctored photos surfaced claiming to show the bases on fire, and users shared reports on Twitter and Facebook that the missile strikes had killed Americans. A news-savvy, educated friend of…
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…
A sweeping new Pew Center report that examines trust in the media confirmed an uneasy truth that we can no longer ignore. It’s not just that our readers don’t trust us. They think we are unethical. And like everything else in America right now, it’s a partisan truth. According to the analysis, Republicans consistently express…