November 9, 2009 News Erupts, and So Does a Web Debut By DAVID CARR NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/media/09carr.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print On Thursday afternoon, when word came about the shootings that left 13 people dead at Fort Hood, just up the road from Austin, it seemed like a made-to-order test for The Texas Tribune, a brand new 12-person Web-based newsroom. They scrambled the jets, made plans, and then — stayed put. The big coverage on the site, TexasTribune.org, on Friday was not about the aftermath of the shootings, but the 50 highest paid state employees and an exclusive about a state representative who had switched parties. The Texas Tribune was conceived and devised to cover the politics and policy of Texas state government. During lunch on Friday at the Roaring Fork on Congress Avenue in Austin, seven staff members recalled the previous day, when the siren of a big story blew. “We were all sitting around talking excitedly about what we were going to do with it,” said Elise Hu, who came to The Tribune from KVUE-TV. “And then you could see Matt,” she said, indicating her colleague Matt Stiles next to her at lunch, “was about to blow his stack.” “It wasn’t our story. Should we have just been one more news organization rushing to Fort Hood? I don’t think so,” said Mr. Stiles, who joined the Web site from The Houston Chronicle. It was one more lesson in a first week that was full of them. Led by Evan Smith, the former editor of the highly respected Texas Monthly, The Tribune is a nonprofit attempt to use a mix of donations, sponsorships, premium content and revenue from conferences to come up with a sustainable model for journalism that neither depends on nor requires a print product. At this point, The Tribune has raised $3.7 million, including $1 million from John Thornton, an Austin venture capitalist, $1.6 million from other individuals, $500,000 from the Houston Endowment and $250,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. All of it is arrayed over the good-for-you, brussels sprouts journalism — education financing, lobbying, bureaucratic priorities, civics and state government. And as a niche site with a very narrow focus, it can’t afford to change its spots just because a national event erupts 90 minutes up the road. “We’re about public policy and politics,” Mr. Smith said. “What I wasn’t going to do was send someone racing up the interstate to cover something, however important, that wasn’t ours.” Various Web sites have carved out a business, or at least an audience, by shaving off some aspect of news, including crime, gossip or entertainment, but state government would not seem to be the sexiest corner of the realm. “The business of state government is health care, education, immigration, the most important issues around, and there are plenty of people who have a stake,” said Mr. Smith, sitting in his second floor office in Austin with the Capitol visible just up the hill. “The reaction from the people at the statehouse about our launch has been gratitude and fear. They’ll say, ‘I’m so glad that you are doing this, and I hope you do a great job of covering everyone but me.’ ” The theory is that a group of well-compensated editors and writers (including Mr. Smith, who makes $315,000, with 15 percent of it deferred for two years) will create valuable reporting shared by citizens and other news media outlets, a kind of digital version of public radio. The site has all manner of blogs and an impressive array of databases, including spending by lawmakers, donations by PACs and lobbying outlays, offering visitors a simple, transparent look into their tax dollars at work. The Tribune has yet to find a voice that makes state politics seem more like, say, the Oscars, but these are early days. What really sets the Tribune apart is not a workable design and good intentions, but its effort to build a durable model for journalism in the future. The idea for the site, which was hatched by Mr. Thornton, a successful venture capitalist and former McKinsey consultant who became interested in newspapers when he was shopping for distressed assets. “I was initially looking to profit on the misery in the industry, but it was clear after even a little investigation that there was not the kind of venture returns that you would need,” he said, sitting in a conference room at the Tribune offices that also functions as a multimedia studio with cameras and microphones. “I began to see journalism as a public good, like national defense or clean air.” “People have suggested that journalism is too important to be left to nonprofits, but I think it is too important to be left to market forces,” he said, standing up to the whiteboard and beginning to draw the kind of diagram a former consultant might understand. “Everybody likes to beat up on the newspaper guys, which is easy to do from the sidelines, but they have been facing a tsunami.” One ally on the advisory board is Mark McKinnon, a policy and media adviser to former President George W. Bush and the vice chairman at Public Strategies, a public policy consulting firm based in Austin. “There are a lot of conversations about the future of journalism where everyone wrings their hands and talks very passionately about the problem, but John is a business guy who thinks in business terms about the problem and has come up with something that could be sustainable,” Mr. McKinnon said. Mr. Smith said there was certainly a need in Texas because the loss of reporting horsepower has made state government less accountable. “There are 150 representatives, and every election, there are maybe 10 races that are competitive,” he said. “That gap in reporting, which is growing, can’t be good for the state or the people that live here.” Talk of “gaps in reporting” hasn’t made some of the people at the remaining newspapers happy, but no one I spoke to would say anything about it on the record. Not everyone is grumbling, though. Robert Rivard, editor of The San Antonio Express-News, sent his best wishes and a donation. “The more journalists holding government accountable, the better off all of us are, so I welcome The Texas Tribune and hope Express-News readers end up reading some of The Texas Tribune’s best work reprinted in our pages,” he wrote in his paper. At lunch last Friday, Emily Ramshaw, a rising reporter who came to The Tribune after breaking a number of big stories at The Dallas Morning News, said she was ready for a change of platforms. And atmosphere. “I feel inspired for the first time in a long time in journalism,” she said. “What we are doing here is exciting, and I was tired of working at places where everyone was scared and worried about what was going to happen next.” There were nods of agreement around the table, including from Brian Thevenot, the former special projects editor at The Times-Picayune of New Orleans who is now covering education for The Tribune. When he notified his bosses that he was moving on, they recommended that he think twice. “My editor asked me whether I was worried about going to a risky start-up, when the much riskier move seemed like staying at a newspaper.” After a year of furloughs and benefit cuts, he left, and a week later, his old newspaper announced a big round of buyouts. Like everyone else at The Tribune, he’s betting that readers will follow his lead. “Of course, the $64,000 question is whether when we throw this party anybody will show up,” Mr. Thornton said. “But this is Texas, a place where people care a lot about their identity and their state. It’s a great place to try this.” -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
