Texas Tribune

Covering the Perry campaign was not The Boys on the Bus. Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the primary, Ben Philpott and the other reporters enjoyed shockingly little access. "You are allowed to see him when you are allowed to see him."

NEW YORK -- While Texas Gov. Rick Perry has grabbed headlines (and the spotlight) from his Republican rivals all week, members of the Texas press corp...

As a co-founder of the non-profit Texas Tribune, I am one of those fantasy-harboring loonies who believes that public journalism is important.

What sustains a not-for-profit magazine is a balanced approach to revenue that includes advertising, subscriptions, charitable donations and, as goody-goody as it may sound, a real belief that the journalism being done is important, and would not be done otherwise.

The forty years between Kennedy and Clinton were an accident of economic and demographic history, resulting in a temporary but highly profitable industry structure for the papers that dominated their markets.

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 journalism is such a good.