As rumored, Texas Tribune and New York Times to partner

You read it here first and probably forgot/ignored it, but the Texas Tribune has now announced/acknowledged that it will partner with the New York Times.

From the TT:

Starting Oct. 29, we'll be the third local partner in the Times' stable, joining our nonprofit pals at The Bay Citizen and the Chicago News Cooperative in providing homegrown reporting and analysis to augment that of the very capable journalists in the paper's regional bureaus. Specifically, we'll be publishing a total of eight stories a week that will run on Fridays and Sundays in print editions of the Times distributed in Texas. The stories will appear in two-page sections labeled "Texas," and they'll be billed as a collaboration between the Trib and the Times. There will be also a new, Texas-branded area of the Times' website — accessible, obviously, no matter where you live — that will showcase even more of the Trib's work.

My March scooplet: "Heard through the grapevine that the New York Times and the Texas Tribune are considering a collaboration, possibly something like what the Times has done with locally produced content in San Francisco and Chicago."

Do young people still become old people?

In an interview with the Economist, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen explains the dilemma all newspaper face as succinctly as I've ever heard :

The cost of changing settled routines seems too high, but the cost of not changing is, in the long term, even higher. A good example is the predicament of the newspaper press: the print edition provides most of the revenues, but it cannot provide a future. I know of no evidence to show that young people are picking up the print habit. So if the cost of abandoning print is too high, the cost of sticking with it may be even higher, though slower to reveal itself. That's a problem.

Currently, old people keep print alive. Yet, young people inevitably turn into older people. I wonder if there is any evidence to show young will pick up the print habit when they gray? Or has too much changed? Perhaps our massive technological revolution has made it impossible to predict what younger generations will do. Maybe we'll return to print as a way to ground ourselves in the tangible; or maybe print is simply too inflexible to carry the news in way we'll want to ingest it.

On another note, Rosen is asked to list media outlets that are practicing journalism the right way. Here's his answer:

Particularly good at what they do: Advertising Age. Gawker. Wired. Voice of San Diego. The New Yorker. The Economist. (Disclosure: You're The Economist!) Rachel Maddow. Frontline. The New York Times. West Seattle Blog. Texas Tribune (Disclosure: I'm an advisor there). "To the Point" with Warren Olney. The Atlantic. "This American Life". The Guardian. Jon Stewart. There are probably some regional newspapers doing a great job that I simply don't read, but fewer than before.

Wedged in between the Texas Tribune and The Atlantic... annoyed to follow Rachel Maddow, gratified to proceed "This American Life."

Rumblings

Heard through the grapevine that the New York Times and the Texas Tribune are considering a collaboration, possibly something like what the Times has done with locally produced content in San Francisco and Chicago.

Going big in Texas

The nonprofit Texas Tribune launched today. Aggregater, blogger, investigator, data miner, pollster, bloviater - the site promises to include all the best online journalism has to offer and with a defined mission to promote civic engagement.

From the editor, Evan Smith:

In true twenty-first-century fashion, we're approaching the task of storytelling across multiple platforms: text, audio, video, blogs, databases, mobile, social. We're treating you, the reader or viewer or listener or user, as if you're the customer, and we're busily puzzling through how best to meet your various demands. Our goal is to maximize your ability to personalize your experience; as we move to day five and day ten and day thirty, we'll be adding new and innovative ways to do just that.

The top story on the site is about the use of physical restraint to control or discipline disabled students. There are also several stories about state politics and the nasty race for governor.