OmahaNebraska.com here with…
Terry D. Sanders, CEO and publisher of The Omaha Star newspaper.
Please tell us a little bit about what you did before and how you came into the position with the paper.
I have been a serial entrepreneur, and I was previously the site manager for the Fair Deal Village Marketplace. I am on the board and currently the executive director of the Mildred D. Brown Memorial Study Center, which at the time owned the paper. In 2020, the board decided to change leadership of the paper, and because I had journalism experience, they recommended me. I accepted as an interim publisher, and In February of 2020 I became the interim publisher. At that time, I was working a full-time job elsewhere. I became publisher in October of 2020. Of course, that is when the pandemic took over, so it was a challenge. But I met the challenge, and we’ve never missed the publication date since the paper’s inception on July 9, 1938.
Wow, that’s impressive. How did you manage and do things differently or pivot during the pandemic?
Well, most of our advertising came from stage productions and the entertainment industry. I had to beef up our stories, get more content, and work from a remote office initially while getting more content. The former paper’s content was like “Family of the Week” and community news. I would do Family of the Week, but I would stand across the street and take their pictures on the front porch and do some things a little bit differently so that there was no physical contact.
It’s been a changing world in many respects, especially in the digital age here. How have you and the Star adapted to that?
Well, we still publish a physical newspaper weekly, every Friday, and we have a digital subscription that people can obtain so they have choices. And we are very present on social media: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. We have tried to keep up with the times while still maintaining our original format of newspaper.
What originally drew you towards journalism and community leadership?
I was a journalism student at Creighton University, and I graduated in 1978. While I did not pursue journalism immediately after graduating from Creighton, I still did things PR wise for my business as well as other entities I was involved in. So I’ve always been in it, just not the written end like I am now.
What has it been like leading such a historic and respected paper?
It’s been wonderful. I am originally from Omaha, so I was familiar with The Omaha Star, but I did not know the founder personally. I was aware of her in the community and the impact that she had, and I feel as though my job is to carry on that legacy.
What role do you feel The Omaha Star has played in preserving community history, culture, and strengthening and connecting the community?
The Omaha Star, as I said, has been around since 1938 and we have archives dating back to the 1940s. So we have been part of preserving the history of the community, and we continue to do that and to cover stories that are positive in concept because we are the “good news” newspaper and always have been since the inception of the paper. I feel that we contribute culturally to the good news, and we spotlight and feature people throughout the community, not just the North Omaha community but the Omaha community as a whole, and give people hope.
What are some of the things that people should check out that they may not know about and maybe some that they should already know about?
Well, they should certainly check out our paper. As I said, we publish weekly. Our subscription rates are $50 for a whole year. [https://www.omahastarnewspaper.com/subscribe] I always say you can’t take a carload of kids to McDonald’s for that amount of money. And just to see some of the articles that we feature, we are heavily into community. We have recently added a sports section, so that will attract male subscribers to our paper if they were not already reading it.
That is a really important thing to include for the area.
Yes.
What advice would you give young people interested in journalism or storytelling?
I think it’s very important to write—physically write—not just on the computer. While I write stories, I don’t rely on artificial intelligence, but I certainly use it for some of the things we have in the paper. We have a word search puzzle that is written in AI. I do the subject, ask for terminology to put in the puzzle, and then I put it in a scramble program so that it scrambles. I’m not writing a word search every week, but I certainly have a concept. I think it’s important for young people to be able to write and communicate.
What role do you feel that newspapers and digital publications should play, other than reporting the news?
I always tell people that newspapers are breadcrumbs to the past. You can put something on social media and 15 minutes later you probably can’t find it, but when it comes to newspapers, there is a definite paper trail. I think it’s important to remember that and keep it in mind.
Our culture is so fleeting and so engaged in seconds of edutainment, so to speak a few.
Yes.
You spoke earlier about the Fair Deal, which I’m interested in also covering, and then the foundation. Could you tell us a little bit more?
In 2023, I established the Omaha Star Institute [https://www.omahastarinstitute.org] , which is a 501 corporation, and that corporation acquired the newspaper from the Mildred D. Brown Memorial Study Center. Our status as a 501 corporation allows us to get funding as well as have a more public-facing entity. We are presently converting the offices of The Omaha Star to a museum featuring excellence in black journalism. And we are restoring the home of Mrs. Brown, which was right behind the apartment.
Wow.
Our offices are moving to the building that is right next door, and there is a wall opening between them. And then we’re establishing the Omaha Star Park and Walk of Fame, which is on the corner. The park has a bust of Mrs. Brown that was erected in 2007 done by Littleton Austin, who is a Fine Arts teacher and sculptor at Creighton University. There will be bricks that people can purchase to memorialize their names or their legacy, and stars also. So those are some of the things that we are doing at The Omaha Star.
I noticed quite a bit of construction there. When will the external project be finished?
The external project will be finished during the fourth quarter.
And then we received the monies from the Mellon Foundation to establish two permanent exhibits, and those will not open until next year.
Next, I would like to hear a little bit more about the Fair Deal, please.
The Fair Deal Café used to be known as Black City Hall in its heyday. The Omaha Economic Development Corporation purchased that property and established a shipping container village on that site. I was the site manager for that when it first came out of the ground, and it houses entrepreneurs within our city.
Thank you so much and thank you for all that you’re doing to preserve history and lead in all of that.
Well, thank you very much.
The Omaha Star
2216 N 24th Street
Omaha, NE 68110-2213
402.346.4041
https://www.omahastarnewspaper.com
