Schizophrenia at the Texas Trib: Creating local newsrooms after previous layoffs

 The Trib has announced it will:

(C)reate, partner or merge with local, community-based newrooms that inform residents more deeply about their communities. We’ll start this effort in Waco by creating a new local newsroom, which we anticipate will launch in early 2025, followed by an Austin newsroom. The models for these newsrooms won’t be the same, because the needs of our different communities aren’t the same. In some places, we’ll create new newsrooms. In others, we will build newsrooms based on strategic partnerships with other outlets to leverage existing resources that can provide a broader and stronger news product. If there’s an opportunity to acquire a news outlet in transition and build on its work in support of a community, we will do that.

Interesting.

We know the Austin Stateless under Craphouse sucks. Why don't you just buy it instead?

Waco? The Trib under Lee Enterprises, after Warren Buffett's handoff, is struggling but not totally crap.

That said, this later part:

We are excited that the American Journalism Project has made a $2.75 million investment to support the transformation of our business model, as well as our revenue generation capabilities in both Waco and Austin.

Why isn't the AJP working directly in those cities? How much of a cut does the Trib and its Goddam Sachs backgrounded CEO get?

And, didn't you lay off people just a year ago?

Another fail at the Gainesville Register

 This time, it's the Gainesville (Texas) Register actually having local news of importance, but burying it in print.

The town of 16,000 had a shooting late last week. They had a story about it in the Tuesday, Nov. 5, print edition — and buried it on page 3. On the top spread in front, they ran something about local polling places and the election. That's fine. On a two-column, or wide one-colum, rail at the right? They ran something either from CNHI Texas-wide, or else the Texas Trib, about election security. And ran it all the way down the page. (An oversized football photo from one of the smaller schools in the county, not Gainesville, and a brief blurb about the end of the regular season in high school football coming up filled the four left columns of the rest of the front page).

That's NOT fine. The shooting had the additional angle of being a dispute between two brothers that boiled over. I'm not totally of the "if it bleeds, it leads," but that should have been on the front page.

It's also buried on the website. As of Thursday afternoon, when I was writing this, it was in the "most popular" tab at bottom right. But, not on the top half of the website at all. The only local "article" is raw numbers from local voting and it's not clearly identified as local.

CNHI sucks. It sucks so much it has one editor over this paper, Weatherford and Cleburne (maybe Greenville will fire its current editor eventually and expand this) who made that decision. Yeah, they're stretched thin, but it was still a dumb decision.

Texas Tribune: How to write stereotyped religious journalism

The Texas Tribune recently offered a pointed comparison-contrast to Tim Dunn's political-religious quasi theocratic compound just down the road, by profiling Connection Christian Church in Odessa, Texas. Here's co-pastor Dawn Weaks: 

"Christian Nationalism is an example of this kind of arrogance parading as Christianity,” she said. “There is nothing Jesus-like about that."

That's the bottom line.

All very good so far.

The church, a member of the Disciples of Christ, has a history far beyond the Dunns' independent church. And, that itself is important. That said, the Trib perpetuates some stereotypes. I lived in Hobbs for a little less than two years, and nobody asked me my religion at H-E-B. That said, I didn't introduce myself to others. (I still think it's a stereotype or cliché; I'm sure that even when two strangers introduce themselves, it comes up far less than 100 percent and probably less than 75 percent. Maybe less than 50 percent, which definitely makes it stereotype, not generalization.)

The story is nowhere near perfect. It's got clichés or beyond, not limited to the above.

There's also a BIG contextual failure on this:

This year, Pew Research reported that 80% of Americans believe religion is losing influence in American life. And nearly half of those who say religion is losing influence said it is bad for society.

That means, as I told the Trib and Nic Garcia on Twitter, that MORE than half find such change either a neutral or to the good, counting "no opinion" and "don't know" as "neutral." (The Trib also didn't link to the Pew piece, a big, BIG no-no in today's world.)

In fairness, it later cites this from the same survey:

In the same survey, less than a third, 27%, of white Evangelical Protestants wanted Christianity declared the official national religion.

While that's not the same as "losing influence," it does offer some framing. But, it's a further one-third the story down. In addition? NO URL for the Pew story. THAT's not acceptable.

And, reporter Nic Garcia's not a newbie. These things aren't excusable.

Beyond that, since Texas Christian University IS AFFILIATED with the Disciples of Christ, beyond and before running a disclaimer at the end, why is there no profile of the denomination? Since this is about two pastors from the denomination, where is a mention of, let alone a discussion of, Brite Divinity School?

Metric Media is now pretending to be Catholic Tribune

 Yes, Metric Media, the king of the pink slime hill, and the Timpone Brothers, are hard at it. Actually, these "Catholic" journals, reports Pro Publica, started in 2020. But, per the story, they appear to have really ramped up this year.

Sadly, as PP notes, the Timpones have the backing of nutbar billionaire Peter Uehlein, owner of the Uline box and packaging company with the environmentally unfriendly doorstop catalogues.

Big weirdness at the Albuquerque Journal

 Its executive editor, Patrick Ethridge, was arrested for shoplifting in late August. The case was eventually dropped, per Searchlight New Mexico, which has a long story on the case, Ethridge's background, the Journal's reporting on this and more.

Chronologically, from earliest to latest, starting with the background, here's the issues.

1. Ethridge came from Beatrice, Nebraska. That's nowhere near the size of Albuquerque. Plus, being just 40 miles away from Lincoln to the north, and with either Abilene, Manhattan or Topeka covering everything south of the Kansas line, and Saint Jo probably splitting SE Nebraska with Omaha, it would be purely a community newspaper there, unlike some place out west where a newspaper in a town of less than 20,000, at least years ago, might have news coverage of 12,000 square miles.

2. When Ethridge's kids were detained for shoplifting themselves, and for general hooliganism, but before he was arrested, one of the cops knew who he was. Was it just because his mugshot is on some editorial columns, or due to something else? The story doesn't have anything further from the Rio Rancho PD.

3. Why did he cop a plea without a lawyer? Did he think this would go unnoticed? Rio Rancho isn't as big as Duke City itself, and the Journal acquired the Observer a couple of years ago. BUT, I think the alt-weekly Alibi is still around. And obviously the Searchlight and other papers are. I recently told Colorado media biz editor Corey Hutchins that I wondered if he had been Mirandaed or not, but that was because I was misthinking he'd been arrested in Albuquerque itself.

4. Speaking of? The Journal took nearly a month to report on it. Yea, a misdemeanor case, but a guy making an easy six figures doesn't need to shoplift, period. That said, per the pictures of him in the story, he doesn't look like the stereotypical executive editor for the daily paper in a city of more than 500K and metro of 750K.

That gets back to point 1.

WHY did the Journal hire him? I've emailed the Searchlight reporter to ask if any folo is forthcoming.

The Texas Observer whitewashes its Abby Rapoport history

Gus Bova does a puff-piece profile of Bernard and Audre's granddaughter and her time at the Observer ...

And ...

Totally ignores alleged issues in the run-up to the Observer nearly going belly-up, including her allegedly clashing with then-editor Tristan Ahlone during her time as chairman of the board.

That said, given that Andrea Grimes has deleted her Substack but yet puts out on her LinkedIn that she still has an affiliation with the Observer? Your piece, for those who keep receipts, actually is a reminder that the Observer still has wounds beneath its band-aids. (Here's how the "affiliation" works, per a November piece she wrote for the Observer. Clicking her byline there? She wrote a piece Nov. 15, 2024, about Texas' post-Roe landscape. First one she's written in three years. Byline otherwise makes clear she works for a reproductive justice organization. And ONLY for them.)

It's part of the Observer's 70th anniversary celebration, a milestone that isn't often commemorated. Probably not bad for the Observer to do this, though, because who knows if it will hit 75.

And ... the Observer has now removed the interim tag from Bova as editor in chief. Way to make him sweat a few months.

StartleGram contines to implode and 3x a week print is pissing off many

 The Fort Worth Report has the details on the Star-Telegram's announcement that it was going to just three times a week in print, and those delivered by the USPS, not carriers.

Given that the Charlotte Observer announced similar plans this summer, I venture this is happening across the McLatchKey chain, owned by the vulture capitalists at Chatham Capital.

First, man that's ugly if they're down to 13K print subscribers. And, 40 or less in the newsroom.

Second, beyond the reaction of people in Cowtown? The StartleGram still delivers up here on the Red. I don't know of any subscribers, but they are on a few racks. Is that being killed?

Third, but of course you're being charged the same price for print subscriptions as before.

Fourth, on the future? Why would you hire someone from New York City to be a community-type columnist? Did they come cheap due to cost of living?

Fifth, speaking of the Snooze? That dinosaur has a new trick or two ... including partnering with the Fort Worth Report for expanded Cowtown coverage.

Sixth, it's pretty hypocritical for a former StartleGram publisher who now is a consultant for Advance, the newspaper company that pioneered schedule-cutting, and union-busting in places like Cleveland, to row his oar like this:

Wes Turner, a Fort Worth civic leader who was publisher of the Star-Telegram from 1997 to 2008 and now serves as co-chair of the board of directors for the Fort Worth Report, said the Star-Telegram’s print reduction “is very disappointing for print subscribers.”

“The reduction in the frequency of the print edition is going to result in much less timely news in the print edition,” said Turner, a consultant for Advance Newhouse publications that owns publishing companies like Condé Nast and American City Business Journals. “Personally, I’m very skeptical that this will help turn things around.”

GTFO.

Seventh, are you saving THAT much getting rid of carriers and going to the USPS?