JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS

The first night I drove into Austin, Texas, in 1993, I’d never logged onto the Internet, but I already knew of the city’s attractions, including the Sixth Street live music magnet. But what made this newsroom alumnus feel instantly at home were the newspaper machines stationed up and down Congress Avenue. Before I’d found a place to spend my first night, I'd spent a pocketful of quarters on a two-pound stack of Texas newspapers, from Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston. Several of them (the afternoon ones) no longer circulate. The place to find all those Texas dailies now is the State Archives.

Today, the non-profit, Texas Tribune launches, with enough funding for two years—$3.6 million from foundations, venture capital, individual and corporate donors. “Unlike some of the new crop of local and regional news startups, the Tribune is launching with enough money for a well-paid staff of 16, including 11 reporters,” Staci Kramer writes for PaidContent.org, noting salaries of $315K for the editor in chief, and up to $90K for seasoned reporters.

The Tribune will do original reporting, offering its content to news organizations throughout the state and delivering it across platforms. It joins a diverse string of non-profit journalism ventures in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and other cities. Some non-profit outlets are getting flack from their supposed-to-be-for-profit cousins, Forbes notes. And the Tribune's new editor in chief acknowledges to MediaBistro “the state's biggest newspapers have been somewhat resentful of what we're doing.”

Texas readers will decide for themselves how the state's newest media option compares with the newspapers that my pocket full of quarters once bought.