T-Squared

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve hired our first Washington, D.C., bureau chief: Roll Call political correspondent (and seventh-generation Texan) Abby Livingston.

This week we kick off our fall membership drive, and the argument for supporting us couldn’t be clearer: It’s about all we’ve accomplished over the last five years — and the amazing things we have planned for the next five.

In the wee hours of Nov. 3, 2009, we flipped the switch on our website, this little experiment of ours in raising the level of civic engagement through nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism. Yep, happy birthday to us.

We’ve spent the last five years hounding lawmakers at the Texas Capitol. Thanks to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, we’ll soon provide this same level of scrutiny of Texas’ congressional delegation — from our new D.C. bureau.

The four-year collaboration between The Texas Tribune and The New York Times will come to an end at the conclusion of the calendar year — a casualty of the challenging economic times that continue to bedevil the media industry.

At this weekend’s Online Journalism Awards ceremony in Chicago, the Tribune was honored in a big way — twice — for reporting projects in and around the 83rd legislative session.

At this year’s Texas Tribune Festival, we partnered with Twitter to capture backstage images of politicians and pundits on the social media company’s Internet-connected, do-it-your-selfie photo booth.

At the Trib, we’re all about experimenting, from our business model to the tools we use to tell stories. This month, we’re toying with a new way to let readers support reporting they care about — using the crowdfunding-for-journalism site Beacon Reader.

We’ll soon have a new managing editor, a new news editor, a new demographics reporter and a new night editor — maybe you?