Why Nebraska Sunrise News?
Some of you may wonder what Nebraska Sunrise News is really all about, and why I have become a part of it.
My entire adult life has been focused on determining the truth of countless issues. I have always been a ferocious opponent of narrative-driven journalism, believing the better part of human nature is to be found in a sober comprehension of reality, not the furtherance of falsehood.
Not always will the result of investigative journalism jibe with the outcome you might've expected going in.
Some of the most important stories I've broken found me standing on the opposite side of the issue from where I started, looking back along the journey with an eagerness to share with others the transformative information I had found.
A couple of prime examples can be found in my reporting on the 2011 Missouri river flooding, and my coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline.
I first believed the flooding resulted from circumstances beyond our control, just one of those "acts of God" we mortals must endure during our transit on the globe. Once I began to dissect the numerous moving parts, I soon realized the flood was not only within our control, but the decision to let it happen was purposeful, despite knowing the tremendous destruction that choice would wreak.
Same with the idea of running an oil pipeline over/thru the Ogallala aquifer. "What are they THINKING?" I asked myself, erroneously believing the aquifer to be some vast, underground lake.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the aquifer is actually a massive rock formation with barely any open space larger than a few feet within it. Imagine further my surprise when that revelation led me to start digging into the motives behind BOLD Nebraska's persistent characterization of the aquifer-as-lake, despite surely knowing it was not.
Then discovering the funding behind BOLD linked back to Warren Buffett, who had just bought the railway perfectly positioned to transport all that oil in the absence of a pipeline, and the picture came together.
The point is, you'll never find the truth unless you're willing to accept your own fallibility, to question your own point of view. Try everything in your own mental courtroom, present evidence as you find it, not as you wished or expected it to be, and in the end, you'll be right more often than wrong.
Nebraska Sunrise News is wholly dedicated to completing just that sort of process before publishing a story. It isn't easy, but if it were, then everyone would do it, and of course not everyone does.
We are a diverse group here, and not only in the "looks like America" tick-box roster of genders and minorities, but in the far more important measure of ideological diversity.
You all know me to be a deeply conservative man, always willing to address an issue directly. Here at Nebraska Sunrise news, I happen to share an office with my ideological opposite.
We are as diametrically opposed politically as two people can be, but we’ve learned we share more than a physical space – we are both equally committed to reporting the news as it is. We, (and the teams of reporters we supervise) find and print the facts so you, the reader, can form your own opinion without the intrusion of bias from the reporter.
That’s what Nebraska Sunrise News is all about. Pursuing truth. We may take different paths to get there, but we always meet at the same place in the end. Our shared commitment to report facts, not narrative, transcends partisan or ideological differences.
We believe that is the very definition of “News.” If you want your news straight and unflavored, ditch the dinosaur papers and subscribe today. The only thing you’ll miss is spin.
Oh, my office mate? Well, that’s former Democrat City Councilman and long-time Omaha political figure Ben Gray, who is NSN’s City Editor, and my new friend.