Our Mission

We are Prairie Fire newspaper. We are the progressive voice of the Great Plains. Our goal is to engage our readership with thoughtful, bipartisan discourse on public policy matters complemented by compelling analyses and critiques of the arts and humanities.

Our newspaper will be neither reactionary nor radical, nor will it ascribe to a particular political philosophy or creed. Instead, we will provide our readers with thoughtful discussion and civilized dialogue, in hopes of bringing forth the products of progressive thought, which have the potential to enrich our daily lives. Progressive thought has brought us unicameralism, public power, natural resources districts, progressive taxation, center pivot irrigation, public broadcasting, jazz, the Nebraska State Capitol, free public education and universal suffrage. It has the power to continue to enhance our lives today.

The current state of our system of governance cries out for rejuvenation, and we hope to play a major role in stimulating such an effort. Rather than being focused on day-to-day legislative and congressional activities, Prairie Fire will explore governments in their broadest sense with a much greater emphasis on executive and judicial branch functions. It was, after all, the genius of our founding ancestors that brought together concepts such as federalism, separation of powers and checks and balances. Sadly, those concepts seemed to have slipped into quiet repose and are in great need of reexamination and discussion. Civility in politics seems to have become a distant concept, and even today the two continue to drift apart. We will attempt to bring them into closer proximity.

Rather than being a chronicle of daily events, Prairie Fire will seek to inspire thoughts that cause daily events to make more sense in the context of an improving society. With such an orientation, we will print essays, opinions, analyses and other works by contributing writers and artists who are experts in their fields, covering public policy, the environment, social issues, the arts and humanities. Editorial license will be retained only to correct linguistic errors, establish contexts or allow use of a pseudonym to protect a writer’s safety or economic well-being. Ghostwritten material will not be published.

Although Prairie Fire will initially be published monthly, we hope wide acceptance and enthusiasm will allow us to publish with increased frequency and extend our readership beyond Nebraska into neighboring states and provinces of the Great Plains.

We are looking to those who, over the years, have repeatedly expressed a hunger for thoughtful public discourse on matters of societal importance. Prairie Fire will provide the structure for a forum through which that hunger can be sated.

Will the cries for civilized discourse translate into journalistic action? Only time will tell.We challenge our readers to contribute to the published ideas and discussions, to join us in a great experiment, and to raise the temperature of their keyboards with a virtual tsunami of civilized conversation.

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