By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON
J Alumni News staff
When you’re discussing your Nebraska journalism history, the name Peter Kiewit better surface near the top of the conversation.
If it isn’t mentioned in the first few sentences, you’re neglecting a man of high importance not only to Omaha journalism but also to journalism in the entire state.
It was Kiewit who purchased the Omaha World-Herald and refused to sell it the newspaper to outsiders in the 1970s.
“Peter Kiewit was a rich man, but he could have made a fortune more if he would have sold that newspaper,” UNL dean of journalism Will Norton said.
While Kiewit didn’t sell to corporations outside the state, he did sell the paper within his own ranks. Kiewit sold the paper to World-Herald employees, who now will make more money off the paper and probably be apt to stay longer.
“Peter Kiewit thought it was important to not sell the rights to the paper out of state, so he gradually sold off stock to employees,” said Lyn Ziegenbein, executive director of the Peter Kiewit Foundation.
A brainy businessman, but not only that.
Kiewit was also a man who highly respected the journalism business until the day he died at age 79 in 1979. Today the Peter Kiewit Foundation keeps his interests in journalism alive.
Just recently, the Peter Kiewit Foundation made a donation for the Peter Kiewit classroom to be built in Nebraska’s new journalism building, Andersen Hall, which is named after Harold Andersen, former publisher of the Omaha World-Herald.
“I think the donation [of the classroom] had a lot to do with respecting Harold Andersen,” Norton said.
Ziegenbein said the donation also had a lot to do with a strong World-Herald interest in NU’s maintaining a high-quality journalism program.
“The World-Herald is always looking for top notch journalists to come out of UNL,” Ziegenbein said. “So of course, the Kiewit Foundation is interested in what goes on at the journalism college.”
With the donations of various people and corporations like the Peter Kiewit Foundation, Norton expects the journalism college to attract more recruits, which the Kiewit Foundation and World-Herald love to hear.
“Every day I come to work, I feel like I am a classy place,” Norton said. “You don’t realize how bad Avery Hall was until you get in a place like this.
“This is a unique place,” Norton said of Andersen Hall, “probably as good as any college journalism facility in the country.”
Somewhere, Peter Kiewit must be smiling.
“Peter Kiewit always had an abiding interest in journalism,” Ziegenbein said. “The new building will surely help get more people interested in journalism, and this state always needs some more strong, capable journalists. And, hopefully, one day they’ll end up at the World-Herald.”