Not-for-Profit News Deep in the Heart of Texas

Posted on 27. Jul, 2009 by Matthew Sollars in New News Organization, Not-For-Profit

The wave of not-for-profit start-ups looking to cover local and statewide news continued to grow last week with the announcement that the Texas Tribune acquired the Texas Weekly, a subscription newsletter devoted to Texas politics and government. As newspapers continue to struggle and advertising revenues fall, it seems like new news organizations are finding it easier to get off the ground without having to worry about making a profit in the bottomline (MinnPost, Voice of San Diego, and the St. Louis Beacon are three examples that leap to mind). In our research so far, we’ve come across successful for-profit news start ups less frequently.

As Neiman Lab noted, the deal gives the Tribune, which is set to launch this fall, a team of experienced reporters and an archive of content dating back to 1984.

The Tribune’s founder, venture capitalist John Thornton, told Alan Mutter last week why he thinks the not-for-profit model is the only avenue for quality, public-service journalism:

“In 2006, we looked at the challenges being faced by newspapers and how guys like us could make a profit,” he said. “The for-profit conclusion was to buy lead-generation businesses and that has worked out for us.”

But…

“I was reminded of something my pastor said when I was a kid growing up,” he explained. “If you mix politics and religion, the pastor said, you get politics. The same thing seems to be true in journalism. If you mix journalism and business, you get business. That’s when I realized serious journalism is never going to be a really good business again.”

Thornton told our own Jeff Jarvis last month that raising enough money through donations to cover state government should be a cakewalk, and might even lead to an increase in reporters on the beat.

Dance companies in Texas raise $20mm a year. . . . If journalism philanthropy, 10 years from now, were the size of dance, we’d put 150 reporters on statewide issues and could literally change the way state government operates. Think about that: an extra 20 at the capital; a couple each for all the agencies and the school board; 20 on the border. You almost can’t spend that much money responsibly. I don’t need opera. I don’t need visual arts. Don’t need symphony. Just give me dance, and I’ll change state government.

But, the starting budget will be closer to one ball than the entire dance season. Thornton tells Mutter the Tribune will run on a budget of $2 million and support a staff of 15 reporters. They won’t cover the waterfront of the state government, but they will be able to focus on the energy industry, the border with Mexico, and how demographic change is transforming the state’s politics. As Andrew Donohue, the editor of Voice of San Diego, another not-for-profit newsroom, noted in a chat with us last week, for a start up focusing on getting just a few things right in the beginning works best anyway.

Finally, here is a surely meaningless, though still interesting, indication of the Tribune’s anticipated Web 2.0-ness: even though it won’t even begin publishing for a while yet, it already claims more Facebook followers than any other newspaper in the state.

Tags: Not-For-Profit, Startups, Texas Tribune, Texas Weekly