KANEKO hosted a discussion with Nebraska journalists, Matthew Hansen and Joel Geyer on August 4, 2016.

Two Nebraska journalists have spent their careers striving to tell good stories. Stories that hook the audience, raise the tension and deliver the satisfying payoff. Stories that matter.

On August 4, NET documentary filmmaker Joel Geyer and World-Herald columnist Matthew Hansen discussed the art and craft of storytelling, interviewing each other about how their best projects went from idea to reality, and from first word to final frame.

They talked about their success and unexpected failures. They offered tips on how to improve the next story you tell while perched on a barstool or crowded around a kitchen table. And they discussed those most basic of human questions, the questions that form the foundation of every good story. Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Matthew Hansen

Matthew Hansen is a metro columnist at the Omaha World-Herald. In that job, he’s written columns about Nebraska’s political and business elite….and also columns about a faded billboard over a BBQ joint, an illegal asparagus growing operation, and a woman who can see sound. (Really.) Previously, Hansen covered higher education and the military and has done reporting from Afghanistan and Cuba. Hansen has won numerous Nebraska, regional and national awards.He was named the 2014 Great Plains Writer of the Year. Hansen is a native of Red Cloud, Nebraska, and is married to Sarah Baker Hansen, the World-Herald’s food critic.

Joel Geyer

Joel Geyer, Executive Director of GeyerGroup, in collaboration with NET Television, has produced and or directed over 40 national and regional PBS documentaries that have been honored with a host of awards including 17 National Awards and over 30 regional awards. Geyer is a past elected member of the Directors Guild of America and Boston Filmmakers Cooperative. His national productions include, “AMERICAN MASTERS – Willa Cather,” which garnered 1.6 million viewers on its premier night. Also, “Buffett and Gates Go Back to School,” which was PBS’s largest selling DVD in 2006. And “In Search of the Oregon Trail,” which was named as one PBS top ten specials in the year it premiered. Geyer’s latest project is the soon-to-be-released one hour documentary entitled “Monumental Risk” – detailing the life and career of renowned ceramicist, Jun Kaneko.