Evan Smith
Posted on 11/02/2009 10:52:17 AM PST by La Lydia
Evan Smith, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, was helping a wealthy friend put together a nonprofit news site and search for the right person to run it. As it turned out, Smith...quit his job and is launching the Texas Tribune, which is designed to fill the gap left by the shrinking number of newspaper reporters at the state capitol in Austin.
"We'll be flooding the zone on this stuff," says Smith, who has hired 11 journalists, half of them lured from the state's top papers with salaries as high as $90,000.
That reflects a reality that separates the Tribune from most such startups: It's rolling in dough. The fledgling operation has raised an impressive $3.6 million, with $1 million coming from Smith's pal, venture capitalist John Thornton.
"It actually started, as much as my life does, out of greed," Thornton says. He was considering buying distressed newspapers, concluded it was "a terrible business" and decided to join forces with Smith instead. An "unreformed limousine liberal," as Thornton describes himself...
Smith had run Texas Monthly for nearly a decade when he felt the need for a new challenge...What makes that odd, in his view, is that he is offering his content, free of charge, to any newspaper or television station that wants it. Smith's message to the media establishment: "I come in peace."...
...The Texas Tribune, which won't accept advertising, is being underwritten with tax-deductible donations from the likes of former lieutenant governors Ben Barnes ($100,000) and Bill Hobby ($50,000), and oilman T. Boone Pickens ($150,000). There are 50 corporate sponsors, including AT&T, JP Morgan Chase and the Texas Association of Business...Smith says corporate backers were limited to $2,500 to avoid the appearance of undue influence...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Expect a hard-hitting expose of Picken's Panhandle wind farm boondoggle.
Not.
“Expect a hard-hitting expose of Picken’s Panhandle wind farm boondoggle.”
It is a private venture and with Picken’s money they may avoid a look into his wind farm venture.
However, you or some other private investor is free to open a news outlet and look into Pickens.
And that’s on a GOOD day.
I was pointing out that the liberal running this venture will in all likelihood avert his gaze from what his benefactors do not want covered.
Destined to fail if he only caters to the liberal left. We have the Austin-American Statesman, The Dallas Morning News, etc all catering to the left. He doesn’t have a void to fill if he marches lockstep down this path.
Somewhere on YouTube is a vid of this guy interviewing Ted Nugent on the Second Amendment. I’m sure he regrets asking for THAT particular interview. Nugent was on a roll that day.
Dude! Did you miss the NOT at the end of that post?
LOL@U!!!
Sadly, this will be just another liberal rag, when we already have enough liberal outlets.
It is a private venture and with Picken’s money they may avoid a look into his wind farm venture.“Expect a hard-hitting expose of Picken’s Panhandle wind farm boondoggle.”
However, you or some other private investor is free to open a news outlet and look into Pickens.
The monopoly in journalism has been the Associated Press.People who work at journalism full time ought to be able to do a better job of it than people for whom it is a hobby. But that's not going to happen as long as we "professional" journalists ignore stories we don't like and try to hide our mistakes. We think of ourselves as "gatekeepers." But there is not much future in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down.In the Internet age, the "walls" of the effect of distance on communication time obviously are down. Yet the AP, which was founded to monopolize the use of the telegraph to transmit news commercially, hangs on because of the way it has acculturated American society to the idea that AP journalism is objective, and bloggers are not.Newspaper sale$ decline should be blamed on the journos
By Jack KellyWell, guess what! If anyone is objective, they will not be claiming to be objective. Not claiming to be objective cannot of course prove objectivity - but claiming objectivity proves subjectivity. What else is subjectivity, if not a belief in one's own objectivity?
Another case of businesses funding their enemies. With Evan Smith in charge, this venture will obviously be a leftist rag. Why on Earth do businesses fund anti-capitalist operations? One thing is for sure: freedom-loving Americans cannot rely on businesses to help preserve their freedoms.
Exactly!
Both the bosses I used to work with have absolutely no clue. One fellow I worked for actually voted in for a tax on his own business as a hotelier. I don’t work for him anymore, but it’s crazy trying to explain to these folks, that they don’t love you, they see you as walking bags of cash to exploit.
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