The days of a kind of news media paternalism or patronage that produced journalism in the public interest, whether or not it contributed to the bottom line, are largely gone. American society must take some collective responsibility for supporting independent news reporting in this new environment—as society has, at much greater expense, for public needs like education, health care, scientific advancement, and cultural preservation…

Which brings me to our own fledgling enterprise: The Texas Tribune.

In a world of failing newspapers and seemingly endless recession, a new, non-profit online newspaper was launched in Texas early this morning. The Texas Tribune. As described by CEO Evan Smith and Founder John Thompson (who wrote the above quote), the paper is a mix of traditional reporting, blogs, searchable databases, and original polling results and analysis. Their first poll was fielded prior to launch, and is already a front-page article.

In addition to straight-ahead news gathered by an extraordinary team of energetic journalists, there’s aggregation of the best content from other sources, meaning you won’t have to surf dozens of sites all day long to keep up with the conversation about public policy and politics. There are blogs — ours and others, also aggregated. There are eleven searchable databases of public information, including government employee salaries, federal campaign donations, and gubernatorial appointees. There’s a massive list of every office up for grabs next November in the Texas House and Texas Senate, among the statewides, and in our congressional delegation; we’ll be constantly updating it as candidates approach the filing deadline. There’s a calendar of political fundraisers and policy-related events of interest to you out there, along with a form that allows you to upload your own event. There’s our polling center, featuring the results of our co-branded University of Texas/Texas Tribune polls, links to other polls of public opinion in Texas, and a blog about methodology and other wonky polling matters by our pollsters, Jim Henson and Daron Shaw.

The paper comes at an important time for American print journalism, and in Texas political history. The demographics of the state are clearly poised to move Texas from Red to Blue in coming years. The 150-seat Texas House of Representatives is currently just two seats away from Democratic control. And 2011 will be a traditional redistricting year. So for those interested in things Texas, and for those interested in the fate of American journalism, this new paper is something to watch.

The paper begins with noble intentions, as stated by Founder John Thompson:

I also concluded that capital-j Journalism—roughly the equivalent of Alex Jones’s "iron core” in his book, Losing the News—is a public good.
… public goods are non-rivalrous: I can consume all I want without leaving any less for you. Second, market forces alone will not produce public goods in sufficient quantity (imagine a world in which indigent health care, national defense, and clean air were left entirely to the discipline of the market). The provider of most public goods is government. But even though the U.S. ranks somewhere between Burkina Faso and Uranus in our per-capita federal spending on public media, Congress will not come rushing to the aid of Journalism anytime soon. There are simply too many competing priorities, and the deficit hawk in me recoils at proposing another one. Besides, obvious fox-in-the-henhouse issues arise—to mix animal metaphors—from government watchdogs funded out of government coffers.

So with both commercial and governmental fixes in serious question, maybe that leaves you and me. Well, me, anyway—I’m in for the proverbial penny and pound. You, I trust, will be won over in time by the good work of privately funded public media efforts like ours.

A revolutinary non-profit, online paper for one of the nation’s largest, most populous states–both in rapid transition. An interesting gamble by Mr. Thompson, with implications that reach well beyond Texas’ borders.