Evan Smith, The Texas Tribune

In 2008, Evan Smith saw a problem: the market for local news was broken. Publications across the U.S. were closing at an alarming rate threatening not just the industry’s existence but, in his view and many others, democracy as we know it.
He, along with his co-founder and anchor investor John Thornton, created a solution: a new model for non-partisan, non-profit journalism, which has since been replicated across the country.
Evan and his colleagues have raised over $100 million from donors across the political spectrum (including Sixth Street) while racking up award after award for reporting on civic life in the state of Texas.
In this episode, we talk to Evan about what went right, what went wrong, and what’s it like being a vegetarian New Yorker in Texas for the past thirty years.