This last Monday, Feb. 17, 2014, The Reader crossed the 20-year mark for covering what’s become an incredibly vibrant, world-famous artistic community and for uncovering the news that the mainstream media misses. Cultural coverage and watchdog, alternative journalism have been our hallmark and it’s because you, our readers, pick up this paper every week and support our advertisers that we’ve been able to reach this monumental milestone. We can’t thank you enough!
We’re looking forward to another 20 years of doing the same, but obviously the times they are a-changing and we’ve been aiming to change with them.
First off, The Reader has branched out to cover our fastest-growing demographic and most dynamic immigrant community through its purchase of ABM Enterprises in 2005 – serving the Latino market every week with our bilingual, community newsweekly El Perico, an annual year-in-review magazine Vision Latina and the annual community guide and business directory Directorio Latino. An outstanding team led by Bernardo Montoya, Marina Rosado, Elizabeth Codina and Irvin Islas makes this possible.
We also run one of the busiest employment sites in the area with OmahaJobs.com and manage by far the best-attended, local job fairs. Our employment expert and Delivery Director Clay Seaman is helping the job market rebound daily, as well as insuring your paper is in the rack when you want to pick it up and our digital side delivers. His team of eight drivers covers the city every Wednesday, finishing Thursday, regardless of weather. They are intrepid and relentless
Your core crew here, Creative Services Director Eric Stoakes, Support Services Director Kerry Olson and Senior Account Executive Dinah Gomez not only manage The Reader, but also the growth of our digital services offerings, detailed at our new website, PioneerMedia.Me. We’re helping a lot of local businesses with their local search, websites, content marketing, online videos, SEO and more to thrive in the digital age. Every business should be its own media channel now and no one knows niche media better than the team here.
And any thank you would be completely remiss without giving a big shout out to the journalists that make our coverage possible and give you a reason to read. From a team that counts more than 100 writers, our contributing editors Michael Braunstein, Krista O’Malley, Warren Francke, Bill Grennan, Mike Krainak, Chris Aponick, Kyle Eustice, Tim McMahan and Ryan Syrek cover their specialties with passion and professionalism.
Stay tuned for 20th Anniversary coverage and events, including a history of newsweeklies in Omaha and how we fit coming in late March, a special joint birthday celebration (ABM turns 15 this year) on the street the Friday before Cinco de Mayo and more. (A moment of silence, please, for MoJo Poe.)
Thanks again for reading and supporting our advertisers!
John Heaston, Publisher/Editor