Omaha Documenters

Public meetings happen almost every day in Omaha. They’re the most regular ways for community members to learn about and influence the civic process. But far too many public meetings occur with no media or public present to document the decisions being made — decisions that shape the policies and systems that impact Omahans’ lives.

Documenters fills that gap in coverage.

Omaha Documenters trains and pays a network of community members to document local public meetings through live-tweeting and detailed note taking. We publish those fact-checked notes for all to use, building a public record of the decisions made at public meetings.

In the Fall of 2022, Omaha Documenters joined the Documenters Network, a national group created by Chicago’s City Bureau, a nonprofit civic journalism lab focused on equipping people to access and produce the information they need. Since its start in 2018, the network has trained and paid over 1,700 Documenters who have covered more than 2,300 public meetings in collaboration with communities and newsrooms in the midwest.

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We cover local meetings to make our government more transparent, our communities more informed and Omaha a better place to live for everyone.

The Reader launched a new nonprofit, the Omaha Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (OINJ), to bring Documenters to Nebraska. OINJ works to support local media and journalism innovation in the Omaha Metro area and the team is building a community advisory board to guide the Documenters community here.

“We can’t emphasize enough how Documenters centers equity in the larger local media conversation and how important this is to building civic engagement and fighting misinformation,” said Reader and El Perico publisher John Heaston. “That’s the kind of local media future we all need to see.”

Who can be a Documenter?

Anyone can become a Documenter by filling an application out and attending an orientation. We’ll provide more information on applications and orientations here soon.

Interested in becoming a Documenter? 

Fill out this form and we’ll be sure to get in touch when applications open.