Move over, Texas Trib; heads up, Texas Monthly and Observer

There's a new player in Texas statewide verbal media. (Verbal replaces "print" as I assume they're online-only.)

The "they"?

The Barbed Wire, per story last week by Semafor.

The players?

The Barbed Wire is a new state digital news outlet that on Monday will begin churning out Texas-focused stories on culture, politics, and entertainment. The project was the result of almost a year and a half of planning by Jeff Rotkoff, the Texas state director of Democratic-aligned super PAC Forward Majority, and Olivia Messer, a former Texas reporter and alumna of the Daily Beast (and a former colleague of this Semafor reporter at the Beast).

Big stuff.

And, they're swinging their weight:

The publication will be a mix of aggregation, essays, columns, and original reporting, including some statehouse coverage and longer-form investigations. The outlet will launch a newsletter called “Wild Texas,” which was influenced by Messer’s time working on the Daily Beast’s news roundup, the Cheat Sheet. The publication is launching with several columnists, editors, and reporters already on board who will cover entertainment, culture, food, and politics. Brian Sweany, the former editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly, and Jamil Smith, the opinion writer and editor-in-chief of The Emancipator, are both signed on as advisors.

There you go.

The timing of of additional interest with the Monthly having just dropped a paywall. The dollar amount for start-up is a lead-in, as with all such paywalls anymore. The intro appears to have been done subtly and ramped up.

The target appears to be primarily the Monthly, secondarily the Trib, and the Observer just getting any blow-by.