What is The Texas Tribune?
A non-profit, nonpartisan public media organization. Our mission is to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide concern, and we do this in two principal ways.
First, through the original journalism that we report, write, compile, record, shoot, etc., and post online at our destination site, texastribune.org, and in the pages and on the sites of our distribution partners. (Ubiquity is a goal; we want to put robust public interest journalism in the hands of and before the eyes of as many Texans as possible.)
Second, through on-the-record, open-to-the-public events: conversation series featuring elected officials and other newsmakers, conferences on major topics of interest to every Texan, an annual ideas festival, a college tour, and the like. The point here is that the in-person experience is itself a distribution platform, and once the event is over, the audio and video of what took place becomes content of its own, likewise available on our site and other sites.
Should I read you instead of my local paper?
No, you should read us in addition to your local paper. We’ve always believed it’s both/and, not either/or. The reason we started the Trib is not because your local paper doesn’t believe in journalism in the public interest. It does, and it produces as much as it can. But in this severely depressed economy, human and financial resources are not as plentiful as they once were. So papers have had to make hard choices. In the end, most of them have eliminated people and pages, and as a result, coverage of policy and politics has been cut way back. This has created a substantive void. You can’t solve big problems if you don’t know about them, and you can’t know about them unless someone tees them up.
We’ll tee them up. Because the Trib’s focus is exclusively public policy, politics, and government, there’s nothing to distract us from the task at hand. Because we’re non-profit, we don’t have to sacrifice our mission at the altar of commercial considerations. Because we’re nonpartisan, we’ll give you the straight skinny—the facts—without an agenda or bias. Because we work for you, the people of Texas, not shareholders or other corporate overlords, we’ll never get our priorities out of whack.
Beyond that, what will differentiate us from other media is our voice (strong, clear, authorial, magazine-like in our love of a good narrative), our innovative use of technology (how we present our reporting will be as much a measure of our success as what that reporting uncovers), our ambition (couldn’t be higher), and our willingness to try new and risky things—even if we ultimately fall flat. These days, many media organizations don’t have the luxury of giving their reporters permission to fail, because the cost of failure is too high to bear in difficult economic times. We have no such apprehensions. To the contrary, we’re operating with a “fail fast” mindset that allows our reporters and editors to think big, to think creatively and differently. If it doesn’t work out, no problem—move on to the next attempt to be great, to be the best.
What do you cover?
A full range of big, important topics, including immigration, education, transportation, health care, water, the environment, criminal justice, energy, poverty—pretty much every line in the state budget. We also cover the major candidates and campaigns for high office in 2010 and beyond, though we’ll train our sights less on the horses than the issues that are driving the race. Or should be.
Do you really think this whole non-profit thing will work?
Yes. All across this state, there are decent people with the money and inclination to support myriad causes that contribute to the public good. We happily make our case to join the list, and we’re well on our way to having enough money to enable our best efforts. Thus far we’ve received very positive feedback from individuals, foundations, and corporations who recognize the need for an organization like the Tribune.
What is clear is that Texans care about the press’ traditional watchdog function—they know we’re the ones who can hold elected officials accountable, who can visit consequences on policymakers who act in something other than the public interest—and they’re willing to support us with contributions modest and enormous, just as they’ve given public broadcasting, also non-profit, the means to do its marvelous work.
Our pitch is simple: Like clean air and clean water—undeniable public goods—journalism in the public interest is too vital to a civilized society, to a functioning democracy, to be left to the vagaries of the free market. Philanthropy must and will become a bigger part of the equation.
How can I contribute?
Go to texastribune.org/donate. For as little as $50—$25 if you’re a college student—you can become a Member of the Trib, forever listed as such on our web site. (For a donation of at least $5,000, you can become a Investor.)
Who’s behind this thing anyway?
Our co-founders are John Thornton, Evan Smith, and Ross Ramsey.
Thornton, our chairman, has been a venture capitalist in Austin for nearly twenty years, and he believes passionately in the potential of public media.
Smith, our CEO and editor in chief, spent nearly eighteen years at Texas Monthly, one of the best-respected magazines in the country, including eight as editor and one as president and editor in chief.
Ramsey, our managing editor, was the longtime owner and editor of Texas Weekly, the state’s premier newsletter on politics and government, which was acquired in July by the Trib.
For more detailed bios on our co-founders, click here.
Who else is on the team?
An impressive array of veteran reporters, young stars, and ambitious newbies, plus some pretty terrific tech and business development folks. To read their bios, click here.
How much have you raised so far?
More than $3.6 million, the low-end of our year-end goal. And we’re not done fundraising—not by a long shot.
Will you accept advertising?
No. But we will accept underwriting—a fancy way of saying that if you support us with your contribution and don’t want to be anonymous, we’ll acknowledge your generosity on our site, much as underwriters of public radio and TV programs are given their few moments in the sun on air. You can’t sell anything in that brief spot, but you can take a bow.
Will there be a print edition?
We’re not foreclosing on any method of distribution, but we don’t have any plans to produce one.
Will you syndicate content?
Yes. We’d like to see our stories and blog posts and audio- and videocasts and polling and databases in as many of the newspapers, on as many of the TV and radio stations, and on as many of the web sites as exist around the state. Whenever our work gets in front of the greatest number of Texans, we’ll be able to say, “Mission accomplished.” And (for now, at least) we’re not going to charge our syndication partners to carry our content; again, ubiquity is our goal.
If you’d like to publish something from the Tribune site, or if you want one of our reporters to appear on your broadcast station or as a speaker at an event, contact our managing editor, Ross Ramsey; at rramsey@texastribune.org or 512/716-8611.
C’mon, will you really be nonpartisan?
Absolutely. Our only bias is in favor of Texas being the best place it can be, which means shining a light on the good being done and making as much noise as possible when the public interest is being subverted or ignored. It doesn’t matter to us if Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or Wiccans are in charge. We’ll call ‘em as we see ‘em.
So is this the future of journalism?
We think so—but what we think doesn’t matter. If you and hundreds of thousands of people like you support this noble experiment, it will be.