March 3, 2026 • 14 mins
Announced today, the World Herald is outsourcing newspaper printing to Des Moines. What does this mean for local media here in Omaha?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So speaking of news and broadcasts, that the news of
the Omaha World Herald outsourcing their printing operations to Des
Moines is. I don't know why I feel bad about it,
but it just kind of makes me sad. You know.
I can remember when I first started doing radio in
(00:23):
Omaha at k CAR with the fabulous Neil Nelkin. The
Omaha World Herald was this amazing newspaper. They had so
many great columnists. You know. One of my all time
favorites was Jim Minghi, who would do entertainment stories and
he would review shows that had come to town, and
(00:46):
also he would write about various radio spats between hosts
and such things. But it was it was an entertaining
column and a lot of people liked it, and I
noticed over the years. In fact, after I left Omaha
as my career begin to skyrocket, I kept a subscription
(01:06):
to the Omaha World Herald and would I would get
like Sunday editions sent to wherever I was living. And
I always really liked that newspaper. I liked the columnist,
I liked everything about it. But over the years, newspapers,
just like everywhere else in the country, newspapers just start
(01:27):
well they just kind of start dwindling, and then they
become there's less pages, and then they make it just
a little smaller, and I think that's really horrible. I
think that you need local news. That's why news radio
eleventon KFAB is so important. Not only because we're able
to bring you things that happen locally, but there's a
(01:51):
bond that builds between show host and audience. Many people
tune into news radio elevnton KFAB when there's really crappy
weather coming in. And by the way, we're headed into
bad weather season here in Nebraska, so you know what
that means. That means I'll just be kicking back during
(02:12):
a lot of shows while other guys will be handling
all the weather reporting. So I'll be kicking it, smoking
a cigar, counting money, you know that kind of stuff. Anyway,
back to my point, I think it's really sad when
a local news outlet just starts disappearing. And I think
if you would notice, we don't really get a lot
(02:34):
of local news. And I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not
saying that anybody is horrible except one TV station. As
an incredibly arrogant reporter who annoys a lot of people
when he goes into the courthouse. But I'm not going
to call any names. I'm going to be a nice
guy for a little while anyway. But you need your
(02:59):
local news, you your local flavor. But what has happened
is that media has consolidated so much that it's just
all about cost, right, And I get it. You know,
you have to pay attention to cost. You can't run
a business and lose money. I know, maybe members of
Congress need to be paying attention to this show today
(03:19):
because you can't spend money you don't have. But watching
the World Herald dwindle and dwindle and dwindle, and now
they're outsourcing their printing. You know, they don't even put
out a paper on a Monday. That's crazy, right, I
remember what was it. There was a big story that popped.
(03:42):
I can't remember what it was, and I think it
popped on a Sunday, and well, whatever, it popped one
night or during the day whatever, And then you would
think that the Omaha World Herald, like every newspaper that
I remember, would have that story front and center. Didn't.
(04:03):
In fact, they didn't have any coverage until like a
day or two later. And I just think that it's
really sad for a community because our newspapers and our
local news media kind of is the well, it's kind
of the stream that holds us all together. But now,
I mean, we have one news station and we have
(04:24):
one television station in town that they bring their newscast
in from. I think California are somewhere, and they try
to act like it's not really from out of state,
but it's pretty easy to spot. But it's really sad.
The Omaha World Herald now is just kind of frankly,
(04:44):
they're gone. I'm just going to say it. They're gone.
They're not a local paper anymore. They're now just a
you know, it's like a newspaper that will just kind
of go through the motions of being a newspaper and
then have a lot of ads. Right. I like the
World Herald. I always did like the World Herald. Didn't
(05:05):
agree with them all the time. In fact, I found
myself disagreeing with them the longer I started reading them.
But you got to have your local flavor in your
local news. You can't outsource that stuff to places where
people don't live there, and that's really sad. Plus, you know,
one of the other things that that's so great about
(05:26):
our city is when it comes to media, you don't
have a lot of local live host anymore. Right here
at KFAB, thank goodness, we still have live hosts most
of the day. They're right here. Scott's here in the morning,
I'm here in the afternoons. And there's something else in
(05:49):
the works that you don't know about that I'm not
supposed to talk about, but I'm kind of talking about
it without talking about it. But there's something else happening,
and when it happens, you're going to go, what that's
bizarre and amazing and you're gonna like it. So I
won't tell you what it is, though, because I don't
want to spoil the surprise. Anyway, you got to have
(06:09):
your local into the news. I think the World Herald
has some of the best sports writers in the country.
I enjoy reading each and every one of them. There's
no secret that I'm a huge fan of Tom Chattel,
but I love their Husker coverage. I love all their
sports coverage. It's really good. I like their coverage of outdoors,
(06:31):
but over the years it's just kind of slipped away.
Now a lot of those World Harold employees. By the way,
they're all safe. They're doing just fine. They're all working
for those so called nonprofit news joints here in town, which,
let's be honest, the nonprofit news business just allows really
rich guys to control the news and the narrative. But hey,
(06:54):
you know, I know they turn in a lot of
great work. So why am I bringing this up. I'm
bringing this up because we're really moving away from our individuality,
and if you look at us as a culture, we
just seem to be moving in the on this path
into just this impersonal, centrally planned information service. Now, Peyton,
(07:21):
you just graduated from college, right, you got a journalism
degree or something like that. Yeah, okay, So by them
folding the Omaha World Herald locally and limited resources that
kind of I don't know, does that make you think,
Holy crap, I'm in big trouble.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I mean, in my last four years of college, news
writing has been pretty diminished. I mean we we almost
didn't even learn about it. Yeah, it was Hey, this
is a thing. Maybe you would do it for a
blog post or an online article, right, but certainly not physical.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah. They use a lot of AI now and yeah,
and you can. And what I get a kick out
of is you can start reading the stories and there's
like wrong words, you know, sentences that run on forever.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
But it doesn't sound like how how you and I talk,
how a human being talks. Yes, you know, when you
when you hear an ad and it's very generic. It's
it sounds like you're reading from something and that's not
the that's not the goal.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah. Yeah. So like our company always says guaranteed human, well,
that's because they are real humans in here. In fact,
if I look in the room next door to me,
there's a couple of news guys in there working really
really hard. Peyton's in here working hard, Scott works hard
every day. A lot of a lot of live people
here at iHeartMedia in Omaha, Nebraska. But that is not
(08:48):
how things are going around the country, and we're losing
our local flavor. That that's what I really am am
kind of annoyed by because columnists from outside of the
Omaha area, outside of Nebraska or the Midwest, you know,
as an example, they don't understand life here, right, and
(09:08):
the big time columnist cats there they live in big
cities like New York, or they've left New York and
now they're in Montana or some other nice looking place.
But to have the Omaha World Herald disappear pretty much,
it's not even a local paper anymore. It's really kind
of like the oh, what is it? What's that weekly
(09:31):
thing they put out with all the ads, buy cars,
buy this, buy that. I guess. Really the news business
it is evolving, that's true. And I think most it's
all going online now.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, hey, you can go to Omaha World Herald dot com.
You could probably buy it for ten bucks a month.
You know, That's that's what it's becoming. It would become well.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I think also the news business has evolved for two reasons.
One because of resources. Traditional media has a big problem
with having enough resources to cover a lot of big stories.
And then others are finding that opportunity and seizing that
opportunity by starting their own news podcast blogs, and some
(10:15):
of them are very credible and they're uncovering tremendous stories
to get through today. But I do want to offer
a great opportunity for some young, entrepreneurial minded journalist. All right,
if you are someone who has the time and the
will to do some investigating, to do some videos, to
(10:39):
do some interviews and such to search out really tough stories.
I would love to have you be part of the show.
And if you're someone like that, and look, here's what
I'm looking for. I'm looking for the next Nick Shirley.
So if that could be you, email me Chris kfab
(11:01):
dot com. Because a lot of the big news that's
being broken right now is coming from independent media. You know.
The traditional media sources are just kind of all staying
in line and all repeating the same thing. I used
to do this. I would flip between all the news
stations when I would watch them, and they all led
(11:24):
with the same story. They had the exact same everything
was exactly the same. So I'm looking for someone that
maybe could do some investigations into voter fraud. During my sabbatical,
I was doing some work for a news organization and
embedding myself with hoboes. Yes it wasn't hard to do
(11:48):
because I dressed like a slob anyway, and noticed that
they were being registered to vote. And even though they
said I don't have an address, the person that was
read during them to vote, well, guess what they said,
don't worry, we'll take care of that for you, So
(12:11):
I think somebody needs to well, somebody needs to look
into that. We need to find out how many people
are registered to vote at one address, like one hundred
and fifty people at one address. Then, don't get me wrong,
I'm sure that there's a house in here with you know,
with one hundred and fifty people in it, and you're
probably swingers. So I don't really want to talk about it,
But that's an investigation that needs to be done. You
(12:36):
know what else needs to be done? Even though I've
already done a thorough investigation on my own. I noticed
that today's Tuesday, and that's the day that the Douglas
County Board meets, and I looked up their minutes and
things like that. I don't see any discussion of the
twenty seven million dollar empty juvenile facility that's been empty
(13:01):
since the day it opened. I think maybe someone should
start asking the board members, Hey, board members, what's up
with that? What's up with that? Juve Justice Center twenty
seven mili twenty thousand a month? It's costing us, it's empty,
(13:22):
what are you going to do about it? And maybe
ask them why when they budgeted for this, Well, why
didn't they budget for staffing because they did not do
that either. So that is a huge problem and we
need to do something about it. You know, the City
of Omaha, Douglas County, you paid for this, they're not
(13:47):
using it. And meanwhile, we have young teens running around
our area committing all kinds of crimes. I thought they
were going to have magic programs to get them to stop,
but they didn't. They don't yet, and I'm sure they're
working on I'm sure they're looking at it. I'm sure
they're very concerned. I'm sure that they're aware of the issue,
(14:07):
and they're trying to find us. You know the usual
bs uh oh. You know the politicians always say, all right,
so I'm looking for that person. Maybe you know that person.
Maybe you are that person. Email me Chris at kfab
dot com and we will get together and we will
talk about it. Because I want that, and I'm a brat,
(14:29):
and if I don't get what I want, I throw huge,
monstrous tantrums.
So speaking of news and broadcasts, that the news of
the Omaha World Herald outsourcing their printing operations to Des
Moines is. I don't know why I feel bad about it,
but it just kind of makes me sad. You know.
I can remember when I first started doing radio in
(00:23):
Omaha at k CAR with the fabulous Neil Nelkin. The
Omaha World Herald was this amazing newspaper. They had so
many great columnists. You know. One of my all time
favorites was Jim Minghi, who would do entertainment stories and
he would review shows that had come to town, and
(00:46):
also he would write about various radio spats between hosts
and such things. But it was it was an entertaining
column and a lot of people liked it, and I
noticed over the years. In fact, after I left Omaha
as my career begin to skyrocket, I kept a subscription
(01:06):
to the Omaha World Herald and would I would get
like Sunday editions sent to wherever I was living. And
I always really liked that newspaper. I liked the columnist,
I liked everything about it. But over the years, newspapers,
just like everywhere else in the country, newspapers just start
(01:27):
well they just kind of start dwindling, and then they
become there's less pages, and then they make it just
a little smaller, and I think that's really horrible. I
think that you need local news. That's why news radio
eleventon KFAB is so important. Not only because we're able
to bring you things that happen locally, but there's a
(01:51):
bond that builds between show host and audience. Many people
tune into news radio elevnton KFAB when there's really crappy
weather coming in. And by the way, we're headed into
bad weather season here in Nebraska, so you know what
that means. That means I'll just be kicking back during
(02:12):
a lot of shows while other guys will be handling
all the weather reporting. So I'll be kicking it, smoking
a cigar, counting money, you know that kind of stuff. Anyway,
back to my point, I think it's really sad when
a local news outlet just starts disappearing. And I think
if you would notice, we don't really get a lot
(02:34):
of local news. And I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not
saying that anybody is horrible except one TV station. As
an incredibly arrogant reporter who annoys a lot of people
when he goes into the courthouse. But I'm not going
to call any names. I'm going to be a nice
guy for a little while anyway. But you need your
(02:59):
local news, you your local flavor. But what has happened
is that media has consolidated so much that it's just
all about cost, right, And I get it. You know,
you have to pay attention to cost. You can't run
a business and lose money. I know, maybe members of
Congress need to be paying attention to this show today
(03:19):
because you can't spend money you don't have. But watching
the World Herald dwindle and dwindle and dwindle, and now
they're outsourcing their printing. You know, they don't even put
out a paper on a Monday. That's crazy, right, I
remember what was it. There was a big story that popped.
(03:42):
I can't remember what it was, and I think it
popped on a Sunday, and well, whatever, it popped one
night or during the day whatever, And then you would
think that the Omaha World Herald, like every newspaper that
I remember, would have that story front and center. Didn't.
(04:03):
In fact, they didn't have any coverage until like a
day or two later. And I just think that it's
really sad for a community because our newspapers and our
local news media kind of is the well, it's kind
of the stream that holds us all together. But now,
I mean, we have one news station and we have
(04:24):
one television station in town that they bring their newscast
in from. I think California are somewhere, and they try
to act like it's not really from out of state,
but it's pretty easy to spot. But it's really sad.
The Omaha World Herald now is just kind of frankly,
(04:44):
they're gone. I'm just going to say it. They're gone.
They're not a local paper anymore. They're now just a
you know, it's like a newspaper that will just kind
of go through the motions of being a newspaper and
then have a lot of ads. Right. I like the
World Herald. I always did like the World Herald. Didn't
(05:05):
agree with them all the time. In fact, I found
myself disagreeing with them the longer I started reading them.
But you got to have your local flavor in your
local news. You can't outsource that stuff to places where
people don't live there, and that's really sad. Plus, you know,
one of the other things that that's so great about
(05:26):
our city is when it comes to media, you don't
have a lot of local live host anymore. Right here
at KFAB, thank goodness, we still have live hosts most
of the day. They're right here. Scott's here in the morning,
I'm here in the afternoons. And there's something else in
(05:49):
the works that you don't know about that I'm not
supposed to talk about, but I'm kind of talking about
it without talking about it. But there's something else happening,
and when it happens, you're going to go, what that's
bizarre and amazing and you're gonna like it. So I
won't tell you what it is, though, because I don't
want to spoil the surprise. Anyway, you got to have
(06:09):
your local into the news. I think the World Herald
has some of the best sports writers in the country.
I enjoy reading each and every one of them. There's
no secret that I'm a huge fan of Tom Chattel,
but I love their Husker coverage. I love all their
sports coverage. It's really good. I like their coverage of outdoors,
(06:31):
but over the years it's just kind of slipped away.
Now a lot of those World Harold employees. By the way,
they're all safe. They're doing just fine. They're all working
for those so called nonprofit news joints here in town, which,
let's be honest, the nonprofit news business just allows really
rich guys to control the news and the narrative. But hey,
(06:54):
you know, I know they turn in a lot of
great work. So why am I bringing this up. I'm
bringing this up because we're really moving away from our individuality,
and if you look at us as a culture, we
just seem to be moving in the on this path
into just this impersonal, centrally planned information service. Now, Peyton,
(07:21):
you just graduated from college, right, you got a journalism
degree or something like that. Yeah, okay, So by them
folding the Omaha World Herald locally and limited resources that
kind of I don't know, does that make you think,
Holy crap, I'm in big trouble.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I mean, in my last four years of college, news
writing has been pretty diminished. I mean we we almost
didn't even learn about it. Yeah, it was Hey, this
is a thing. Maybe you would do it for a
blog post or an online article, right, but certainly not physical.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah. They use a lot of AI now and yeah,
and you can. And what I get a kick out
of is you can start reading the stories and there's
like wrong words, you know, sentences that run on forever.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
But it doesn't sound like how how you and I talk,
how a human being talks. Yes, you know, when you
when you hear an ad and it's very generic. It's
it sounds like you're reading from something and that's not
the that's not the goal.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah. Yeah. So like our company always says guaranteed human, well,
that's because they are real humans in here. In fact,
if I look in the room next door to me,
there's a couple of news guys in there working really
really hard. Peyton's in here working hard, Scott works hard
every day. A lot of a lot of live people
here at iHeartMedia in Omaha, Nebraska. But that is not
(08:48):
how things are going around the country, and we're losing
our local flavor. That that's what I really am am
kind of annoyed by because columnists from outside of the
Omaha area, outside of Nebraska or the Midwest, you know,
as an example, they don't understand life here, right, and
(09:08):
the big time columnist cats there they live in big
cities like New York, or they've left New York and
now they're in Montana or some other nice looking place.
But to have the Omaha World Herald disappear pretty much,
it's not even a local paper anymore. It's really kind
of like the oh, what is it? What's that weekly
(09:31):
thing they put out with all the ads, buy cars,
buy this, buy that. I guess. Really the news business
it is evolving, that's true. And I think most it's
all going online now.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, hey, you can go to Omaha World Herald dot com.
You could probably buy it for ten bucks a month.
You know, That's that's what it's becoming. It would become well.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I think also the news business has evolved for two reasons.
One because of resources. Traditional media has a big problem
with having enough resources to cover a lot of big stories.
And then others are finding that opportunity and seizing that
opportunity by starting their own news podcast blogs, and some
(10:15):
of them are very credible and they're uncovering tremendous stories
to get through today. But I do want to offer
a great opportunity for some young, entrepreneurial minded journalist. All right,
if you are someone who has the time and the
will to do some investigating, to do some videos, to
(10:39):
do some interviews and such to search out really tough stories.
I would love to have you be part of the show.
And if you're someone like that, and look, here's what
I'm looking for. I'm looking for the next Nick Shirley.
So if that could be you, email me Chris kfab
(11:01):
dot com. Because a lot of the big news that's
being broken right now is coming from independent media. You know.
The traditional media sources are just kind of all staying
in line and all repeating the same thing. I used
to do this. I would flip between all the news
stations when I would watch them, and they all led
(11:24):
with the same story. They had the exact same everything
was exactly the same. So I'm looking for someone that
maybe could do some investigations into voter fraud. During my sabbatical,
I was doing some work for a news organization and
embedding myself with hoboes. Yes it wasn't hard to do
(11:48):
because I dressed like a slob anyway, and noticed that
they were being registered to vote. And even though they
said I don't have an address, the person that was
read during them to vote, well, guess what they said,
don't worry, we'll take care of that for you, So
(12:11):
I think somebody needs to well, somebody needs to look
into that. We need to find out how many people
are registered to vote at one address, like one hundred
and fifty people at one address. Then, don't get me wrong,
I'm sure that there's a house in here with you know,
with one hundred and fifty people in it, and you're
probably swingers. So I don't really want to talk about it,
But that's an investigation that needs to be done. You
(12:36):
know what else needs to be done? Even though I've
already done a thorough investigation on my own. I noticed
that today's Tuesday, and that's the day that the Douglas
County Board meets, and I looked up their minutes and
things like that. I don't see any discussion of the
twenty seven million dollar empty juvenile facility that's been empty
(13:01):
since the day it opened. I think maybe someone should
start asking the board members, Hey, board members, what's up
with that? What's up with that? Juve Justice Center twenty
seven mili twenty thousand a month? It's costing us, it's empty,
(13:22):
what are you going to do about it? And maybe
ask them why when they budgeted for this, Well, why
didn't they budget for staffing because they did not do
that either. So that is a huge problem and we
need to do something about it. You know, the City
of Omaha, Douglas County, you paid for this, they're not
(13:47):
using it. And meanwhile, we have young teens running around
our area committing all kinds of crimes. I thought they
were going to have magic programs to get them to stop,
but they didn't. They don't yet, and I'm sure they're
working on I'm sure they're looking at it. I'm sure
they're very concerned. I'm sure that they're aware of the issue,
(14:07):
and they're trying to find us. You know the usual
bs uh oh. You know the politicians always say, all right,
so I'm looking for that person. Maybe you know that person.
Maybe you are that person. Email me Chris at kfab
dot com and we will get together and we will
talk about it. Because I want that, and I'm a brat,
(14:29):
and if I don't get what I want, I throw huge,
monstrous tantrums.
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