 | |
 Sign for theTexas Tribune offices at the Capitol Center inDowntown Austin | |
| Type | Nonprofit |
|---|---|
| Format | Web |
| Founder(s) | John Thornton Evan Smith Ross Ramsey |
| Editor-in-chief | Matthew Watkins |
| CEO | Sonal Shah |
| Founded | 2009; 16 years ago (2009) |
| Headquarters | 919 Congress Avenue Austin, Texas, United States 30°16′18″N97°44′28″W / 30.271557°N 97.741243°W /30.271557; -97.741243 |
| ISSN | 0897-2710 |
| OCLC number | 465271495 |
| Website | www |
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit politics and public policy news website headquartered inAustin, Texas, United States.[1][2] Its stated aim is to promote civic engagement through original,explanatory journalism and public events.[3]
The Texas Tribune, like theVoice of San Diego andMinnPost before it, is part of a trend toward web-based,non-profit journalism.[4]
In addition to journalism published on its news website,[5] theTribune permits content re-publication both online and in print.[6][7]
The Texas Tribune hosts various events and conferences including the Texas Tribune Festival,[8][9] which attracts national journalists and politicians for interviews and forums.
The foundation was created in 2009 by venture capitalistJohn Thornton[10] and veteran journalistsEvan Smith and Ross Ramsey.[11][12] The idea for the organization originated with Thornton, who spent much of 2008 and 2009 promoting public interest in the concept of journalism as a public good. Thornton wrote, in July 2009:[13]
In Micro 101, we learn that such "public goods" as clean air and national defense will not be produced in sufficient supply exclusively by market forces. Allow for the sake of argument that what I'll call "capital J" Journalism – journalism that takes on serious, complex issues and puts them in the context of how citizens interact with their government – is such a good.
Thornton and his wife, Julie, seeded the venture with $1 million of their own money[14][15] to fund the organization's nascent operations and began to raise money from around the state and around the country from individuals, corporations, and foundations.[14]
An additional $2.5 million donated by various foundations and Texas philanthropists including former Democratic Lt. GovernorBen Barnes, financierT. Boone Pickens and businessmanRed McCombs.[16] Pickens in particular donated $150,000.[17] Foundations donated about $1.1 million, including a total of $750,000 in grants from the Houston Endowment.[18] TheSid W. Richardson Foundation of Fort Worth also gave a $100,000 operating grant beginning from 2015 and continues to provide an operating grant. TheJohn S. and James L. Knight Foundation donated $250,000 in late 2009, and their subsequent donations totaled $2 million by December 2016. That month, they announced that they would match up to $25,000 in gifts of $1,000 or less pledged to theTribune between then and January 19, 2017.[19] Most of the 68 corporate sponsors made a $2,500 commitment as co-founders of the publication. Thornton stated in January 2010, "In the coming months, we intend to become far more sophisticated in the way we market corporate sponsorships of both our site and our events series, TribLive."[20]
Thornton hired Smith, the longtime editor ofTexas Monthly, to be CEO and editor-in-chief of theTribune, and the two recruited Ramsey, the longtime editor and owner ofTexas Weekly, to be managing editor.[14] Smith and Ramsey subsequently hired several well-known members of the Capitol press corps to join the team: Matt Stiles, of theHouston Chronicle;[21] Emily Ramshaw, of theDallas Morning News;[22] Brandi Grissom, of theEl Paso Times;Elise Hu, ofKVUE-TV;[23] and Reeve Hamilton, who covered the Texas Legislature forThe Texas Observer. Morgan Smith, formerly ofSlate, started writing for theTribune in January 2010.
Thornton raised more than US$2 million before the project was made public in July 2009.[15] By the timeThe Texas Tribune debuted on November 3, 2009,[16] it had raised $3.6 million from more than 1,000 individual donors and at least fifty corporate sponsors.[15]
The Texas Tribune has been actively developing an open source publishing platform along withThe Bay Citizen, specifically tailored for nonprofit news organizations like itself. The system, namedArmstrong, was funded through a $975,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It is based on technology theTribune has been using since 2009.[24]
In March 2025,Tribune founder John Thornton died. He was 59.[25]
Current staff includesSonal Shah, CEO;[26] April Hinkle, Chief Revenue Officer; Terry Quinn, Chief Development Officer; Natalie[27] Choate, Chief Operating Officer; Evan Lambert, Chief Financial Officer; Liam Andrew, Chief Product Officer; Jacob Villanueva, Chief Creative Officer and Ayan Mittra, Senior Managing Editor. Co-foundersEvan Smith and Ross Ramsey retired in 2022.[28]
Brian Thevenot, a two-timePulitzer Prize winner who was formerly special projects editor forTheTimes Picayune of New Orleans, joined the staff in October 2009. He has since left theTribune, and is now business editor at theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch.[citation needed]Elise Hu departed in 2011 to joinNPR in Washington, D.C., and Matt Stiles later joined her at NPR.[29][30]
In May 2011, theTribune announced the hiring of Jay Root, formerly of theFort Worth Star-Telegram and theAssociated Press, who had twice been named Staff Writer of the Year by the Associated Press.[31]
Effective October 18, 2021,Sewell Chan was named editor-in-chief.[32][33] Following Chan's departure to theColumbia Journalism Review, Matthew Watkins was made editor-in-chief on September 9, 2024.[34]
In August 2023, theTribune underwent its first round of layoffs in the publication's history.[27]
The Texas Tribune is funded through donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations.[35][36]
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