RIP to Texas Tribune founder John Thornton

Per this piece, I didn't know that much about Thornton.

To start at the start? Please, get help for mental health needs. (Reading between the lines, it appears to be suicide, and one that perhaps had been looming for some time, sadly.)

On the professional side? This illustrates that philanthropy journalism isn't a savior.

Thornton was a venture/vulture capitalist. Graduated from a "citadel," if you will, for things like that — Stanford Graduate School of Business with an MBA. Worked at McKinsey. And, like many of the modern venture capitalists, though not Hucksterman or Peter Thiel, a techbro, by his investments.

People like him might back a "safe" general interest nonprofit online newspaper like the Trib, but they're not going to back, say, Jacobin. Or Counterpunch. Or Mint Press. 

And, per their political background, they'll be OK with their ventures pulling punches to appease some business interests, as the Trib has before, as I have written about.

Already at the five-year mark, in 2014, the Trib had ethics-type issues.

Jim Moore, former journalist, now political consultant, explains why the Texas Tribune's "pay to play" idea of "journalism," kind of like Politico but on a much broader front, is ethically wrong and more, in a four-part series. (Link from my original writing is dead.)

Arguably, rather than becoming more ethically responsible now that it's theoretically past its teething troubles, the Trib is worse, if anything. 

Moore notes this in Part Four:

In less than five years, the Texas Tribune has gone from being an exciting startup to a hypocritical, money-grubbing promotional operation wearing a coat of many colors that it wants desperately to convince everyone is actual journalism. But it is not. There is no reason to any longer take the Tribune seriously as a news organization. They simply cannot be trusted.

The big brains of the Texas Tribune were supposed to save journalism. Instead, they are busily speeding up its extinction.

And they ought to be ashamed.

Of course, they're not.

Much of its sellout is to largely right-wing big businesses, who make "donations" and in exchange get puff pieces about themselves and their industries. 

The type of businesses Thornton hobnobbed with and vulture capitalists with.

Hell, two years before that, Editor and Publisher has a great synopsis (dead link) of why they're not good for journalism. Three main points.

1. Their news coverage is restricted by wealthy donor interests and pressures. (E&P has specifics in the TT's case, re John Sharp/Texas A&M.) So, no "probing" journalism, if told not to. (That said, I've experienced that at for-profit papers, too.)

2. "Freeloading" by for-profit papers, with the possible result of further salary depression, etc. (We're going to see yet more of that with the Trib's new newsrooms in selected cities. The Waco Trib of Lee Enterprises will be fine with the Texas Trib starting some sort of site in Waco, as long as Lee's paper still gets Waco, Waco ISD and McLennan County legal notices.)

3. Back-scratching for friends. Evan Smith's $315K salary as the Trib's executive editor — in 2012! — has been mentioned by me before. I consider it out of line in general, especially since one of the Trib's "sponsors," Texas A&M, gets taxpayer money.

The first point is something I've seen coming down the point for some time. Rich funders of nonprofit papers, whether individuals or foundations, can steer these papers into boutique journalism, spike or lighten negative stories and more.  

With the Trib?

Especially when it comes to talking Earl, Black Gold, the Texas Tea? The Trib has always been light in the loafers about calling Big Oil to account, let alone following fellow light-in-the-loafers Politico to write something about climate change legal liabilities.

And, successful? As in profitable? Well, maybe. It depends on what metrics and how you analyze them, as we look at Evan Smith's hoorah piece, back in 2019.

OK, first, financials.

$10 million intake and $9.7 million expenses. Yes, you're in the black.

At 3 percent.

A total haul of $76 million over that decade?

How much of that haul is from your "sponsors" in what Moore called pay-to-play journalism? Or that, since that, you demonstrated was pay-to-pay with advertorial journalism?

Let's also not forget that in 2023, the Trib actually laid off people, canning 11 editorial staff.

We start internally, as Trib tries to spin its editorial staff gutting. It is worth noting that part of the cuts are on podcasts; print and digital-print media that "pivoted" to podcasts a few years ago, in yet another version of the tragedy of the commons, oversaturated the market.

The Austin Chronicle has two posts about the layoffs at the Texas Tribune. The first is a big one, for multiple reasons. It notes that, first of all, there will be no more prisons and criminal justice desk at the Trib. However, there are six new hires — none in editorial. All in either general development positions or directly in sponsorship.

Per what I've said elsewhere, the Trib doesn't go in depth on many issues, either. Take a good example of bad, or stereotyped, religion writing. There's no investigative journalism of their own, only what's partnered with Pro Publica.

 

Somehow, I doubt the Texas Press Association will hear from Sam Houston again

About 21 months ago, TPA's monthly newsletter, The Messenger, ran unadulterated, unedited and uncut, a column from the owner of the newspapers in Granbury, Azle and Springtown, about how he was merging the latter two and this would be so incredible.

Incredible, beyond TPA running the column as is, was the braggadocio — and worse — that was in it, as I noted at the time.

But, 21 months later, the Tri-County News (whose name was itself a bit of braggadocio) — is no more, per Austin Lewter's column on page 3 of the March Messenger. Per Austin's reflections in general, yes, rises in postal rates continue to have a bite. But, I don't think that's what happened here. Rather, he had a "unicorn" of sorts who relatively recently retired, and I think that, whether money, job details, a mix, or whatever, he couldn't really find a replacement, for whatever reason didn't really try to sell, and so just pulled the plug to focus on Granbury and Gatesville.

Update, April 4: Azle and Springtown have been resurrected, and Houston's old right-hand person, Kim Ware, is coming back out of the retirement she entered into before the closure. There's surely a backstory there. That said, this brings to light a problem with TPA's website — no search function.

Once again eff the Texas Press

 I DO NOT LIKE the switch made, already last year if not two years ago, to contest divisions in the Better Newspapers Contest.

My weekly newspapers should NOT NOT NOT be PUNISHED — and that's exactly what's happened — by being lumped not only with semiweeklies but

There's probably a reason you readvertised that position, Roswell

 Managing editor job, five-day daily. Kind of isolated, Western state. 

That doesn't reveal too much, as towns big enough to be small cities can be kind of isolated in any Western state due to population and climate controls on it out there.

So, I won't say more, so I don't alienate the publisher if this is read by that person. Well, sort of; hold on to that thought.

Job advertisement was on JournalismJobs in early June. Apparently nobody bit, or nobody good enough for their ask, or nobody cheap enough for their offer sheet or some combo of the above. (Job listing says that pagination as well as website content management experience is required, which means no pagination hub, and who knows how much help, to boot. Also weirdly, it uses a Siri-type app to do voice versions of all stories. Can't be for the visually impaired, as you have to see to hit the "play" button.)

So, it was readvertised a month or so later, early-mid July.

So, I applied, to kick the tires as much as anything. In addition to the notes above about a spot being advertised again, per not wanting to alienate the publisher, I told them in my cover letter and email that I knew more about the place than the typical out-of-state applicant, and hinted it was a fair chunk more, but didn't go into detail, lest I risk alienation.

I did not tell them that I also knew the previous ME had stuck only a year or just over.

Anyway, the publisher did make me a bit green with anger, not envy.

Said I needed clips along with cover letter and resume. I said I have a Google Docs link, open to public, at the end of the resume. Publisher said no bueno. 

So, with no more than medium effort, I gave them a police story about a drug and alcohol sales to minors sting, a column related to that, as no more than medium effort, and then a 5,000-word, or more, long feature story about the retirement of the previous priest at the Catholic church here. I wanted something that long deliberately.

Month later? Haven't heard back and I sent no queries. My tire kicking was not high-level interest even before the personal interaction.

==

And, what the hell. Let's name names.

It's .... the ....

Roswell Daily Record. Per the "about" on its website, it's like Jill Stein trying to pretend to not be an antivaxxer while actually being one. In this case, it's trying to pretend not to push 1947 UFO conspiracy theory while actually doing so.

In July 1947, something streaked out of the sky, hitting the ground outside of Roswell, New Mexico, beginning years of ongoing speculation as to what the object was. According to initial information provided to the Roswell Daily Record by the Roswell Army Air Field, the startling headlines claimed that the military had recovered a flying saucer from a nearby ranch.

Overnight, the story changed from a flying saucer to a weather balloon, and over the ensuing years, that explanation morphed into a military high-altitude surveillance program. Over decades of conspiracy theories that the U.S. government has covered up the possibility that an alien spacecraft and its otherworldly crew were responsible for the 1947 crash. Through it all, and continuing to this day, the Roswell Daily Record was there to report the news and to spark the public interest and fascination with this story.

Wrong. 

The publisher, and owner, is the daughter of a long-term owner who died in 2018. AFAIK, it's the only paper they own.

And, Beck daughter has a reason to peddle this, as did daddy, assuming he did, too.

The paper owns its own UFO store.

Of course, here's the reality.

And, I knew that reality long ago. I also know that, 25 years ago, Roswell boosters were talking about when the city would hit 50,000. Never happened. Population's been basically flat since 1990 and Farmington has just about caught it, while the Farmington metro area is much bigger.

Basically, it's a High Plains/edge of desert community, that has, or it was when built, the largest mozzarella cheese plant in the US if not the world.  But climate change and water owed to Texas on the Pecos and no aquifer of note in the area will ding that. There's some oil there, but not like in the Permian. New Mexico Military Institute is the only other major or semi-major business driver.

Update, Feb. 15, 2025: Gee, that last ME (assuming you hired one) really spit the bit quickly if you're advertising anew on Journalism Jobs, six months or so after the readvertising last August of the original June advertisement.

Once again, the Gainesville Register

 I understand "slow news weeks."

I understand "slow news photography weeks."

But, really?

A college letter of intent signing, and not at Gainesville itself, but a lesser school district? And, not a major sport, but track and cross country? And a Division III NCAA school (that probably should be NAIA)? 

That was Feb. 11.

A few weeks ago, I noticed their latest cost-cutting.

They're not running weekend color comics as separate pages. Instead, one page of such is running on the back page of the regular paper. And, that's still with that issue normally being only 10 pages.

Media wrap: NJ.com goes print-silent, more LAT censorship

First, how does the largest paper, in the most densely populated state in the US, go print-silent? (And, other than possible gloating or to pick up readers and advertisers, why does the New York Times have its story about the New Jersey Star-Ledger paywall-unlocked?)

That said, seeing it unlocked is an eye-opener about the entire chain:

Its sister publication, The Jersey Journal, one of the earliest holdings in the Newhouse media family’s now-vast empire, will cease to exist in print or online, leaving Hudson County, N.J. — a hotbed for political corruption — without a daily newspaper. Three other affiliated papers, The Times of Trenton, The South Jersey Times and The Hunterdon County Democrat, will stop printing and offer only digital news.

Incredible.

But, not surprising.

The NYT goes on to note that the Star-Ledger's parent company is the Newhouse family's Advance, as one could guess from the online name of "NJ dot com." It references what it did in Alabama. And we know what it also did in NOLA, where Baton Rouge, under different ownership, wound up kicking the Times-Picayune ass and forcing a sale-merger.

On the other hand, this may have been inevitable:

In 2005, nearly 600,000 households bought The Ledger on Sundays, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. By 2023, Sunday circulation had plummeted to roughly 86,000. When it announced two months ago that it planned to stop printing on Feb. 2, the company noted that its circulation had dropped by an additional 21 percent last year.

There you are.

And, with all those papers going online, what happens with state requirements on legal notices? Erm, this!

The Legislature adopted a temporary fix that permits communities with a defunct newspaper to purchase legal ads through the paper’s online news site. Lawmakers are expected to try to craft a more permanent solution this month. Lobbyists for counties, school boards and the state’s nearly 600 cities and towns are pressing for permission to publish legal ads on their own websites — a step that would deprive news organizations of a longstanding source of revenue.

And, yeah, I expect legiscritters will allow local governmental entities to publish. First, given New Jersey's state government reputation. Second, given how one company has so dominated one state's print media at the larger newspaper level, the NJ Lege may just want to say fuck you to the Newhouses.

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And part 2 of the header?

It's becoming clearer by the day that the Los Angeles Times "doctor daddy" owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, is determined to kiss Trump's ass. His daughter may be right that a Kamala Harris endorsement editorial was spiked in part over Gaza. But, no more than in part, and surely a smaller part than she'd like to claim.

The latest? Doctor Daddy had a column, not a house editorial, critical of Brainworm Bobby, heavily edited, including changing the headline. Worse yet? It was an outsider's submitted column.

David Folkenflik notes that Doctor Daddy has gone Musk-y on his Tweeting for Brainworm Bobby, too.

Since I posted this last week? Doctor Daddy is also doing at least a bit of flirtation with the COVID antivaxxer world.

Not a fan of the move to Indian pagination hubs

 I know that more and more smaller newspapers, as individuals, or smaller newspaper groups, have been moving to a pagination hub, or even just a couple of individual paginators serving four or five weeklies or semiweeklies. I "get" that, though I'm not a total fan of papers that are still triweekly or more in print outsourcing.

I'm not at all a fan of "community" newspapers outsourcing overseas.

I call ethical hypocrisy, in fact. This, to me, basically spits in the idea of community-mindedness in general.

But that's just one issue.

I know the hedge fund chains aren't passing on any of the actual or alleged savings to remaining employees. What about smaller companies?

Also, part of the "tout" of Indian pagination hubs is that, since they're halfway around the globe from the US (setting aside daylight time, India is 11 1/2 hours ahead of US Central Time) you can work this to your advantage. Well, only if you're further exploiting them. Let's say you send a Google Doc or whatever with pagination info at 8 a.m. It's already 7:30 p.m. over in Mumbai or wherever. Assuming there's not a whiz kid knocking out six pages an hour, and also assuming there's not three people working on your, say, 12 page triweekly at the same time, you're not getting it back until 10:30 p.m. their time. Then, you're doing markups and edits, and expecting their changes? They're not going to be done until midnight Indian time or later. And, they're not getting paid for that late work.

Related? The people who do this work probably don't have the best English-language skills within Indians. People at the top of that food chain aren't working in jobs like this over there.

And, if you ever have to talk on the phone with them? Good luck with that Indian-accented English. All of this is sand in the gears.

In turn, if you have to work around their time, or they have to work around your time, and your press time? Even if you're a triweekly, you're going to have semi-stale news in the print version. Absolutely so, relative to what things would have been like before, if you're still a small daily.

So, this is an argument for further cutting your print days a week. But, that gets back to the bottom line.

So, are you really saving that much money?

==

That said, a lot of this isn't that new; it's just accelerating. 

Nearly 20 years ago, an online-only "newspaper" was outsourcing local government meeting coverage to Indians watching streaming video from the city, county and school boards meetings, with local governments big enough to be streaming their meetings that long ago. The Miami Herald was doing this not much later.

==

And, beyond the general professional angle? Three of four jobs for which I have had first-round interviews in the last 7-8 months do, or were moving to, an Indian pagination hub.