TribCast is a weekly political podcast, hosted by Matthew Watkins and Eleanor Klibanoff, and featuring a rotating cast of editors, reporters and other guests. The TribCast is returning as a limited-run series during the 2025 legislative session. More in this series

The Texas Tribune Tribcast for Aug. 4, 2023

In this week’s episode, we discuss two cases at Texas A&M University that raised questions of academic freedom — and the fallout that ensued.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

More than 200 speakers are now confirmed for the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival in downtown Austin from Sept. 21-23. Each year, the Festival engages, challenges and surprises attendees with unexpected talent mashups, must-see interviews and more, curated by the award-winning journalists at The Texas Tribune. See the lineup and get tickets today.

 Learn about The Texas Tribune’s policies, including our partnership with The Trust Project to increase transparency in news.

Matthew Watkins began serving as editor in chief of the Tribune in September 2024. Matthew is a Texas native, born in Houston and raised in Austin. He attended public schools and graduated from Texas A&M...

Todd Wiseman was the senior editor for video and multimedia at The Texas Tribune, where he worked from 2010 to 2023. Todd previously worked at the Austin School of Film and Synthetic Pictures and interned...