Nonprofit news venture Texas Tribune to launch
November 2, 2009 · Filed Under Social Media
Evan Smith, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, is launching the Texas Tribune, a non-profit news operation that has hired 11 journalists at competitive salaries.
Howard Kurtz reports:
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, he decided a nonprofit news venture was “a more compelling way to spend my time than beating the partisan tom-toms.”
….Smith had run Texas Monthly for nearly a decade when he felt the need for a new challenge. “We’re not looking to replace the newspapers,” he says. “But some people in the newspaper business are outraged by our very existence.”
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.”
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