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Media

Media Gave Conway a Free Pass

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962) This is a story about how a variety of media organizations...

‘Statesman’ offers buyouts to 200 employees and shutters its Spanish language edition

GateHouse paid $47.5 million for paper in April with big noise about commitment This April Fool’s joke had a delayed punchline. And it’s a bad...

Statesman Acquires The Austin Bulldog

 Statesman Acquires The Austin Bulldog

Surprise announcement comes on fifth
anniversary of launching the Bulldog

© The Austin Bulldog
Posted Wednesday April 1, 2015 1pm

Ken MartinKen Martin, founder, editor and publisher of The Austin Bulldog launched its website April 1, 2010, saying, “We don’t take ourselves too seriously but we take our reporting very seriously.”

On the fifth anniversary of the organization that has relentlessly pursued investigative reporting in the public interest as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focusing on holding local government accountable, comes the news that the Austin American-Statesman will expand its reach into local government coverage by pushing into the areas covered by the Bulldog.

Debbie Hiott“We have the resources to expand the Bulldog’s focus and give local government agencies the same bruising coverage afforded to unlucky state agencies that have wandered into our crosshairs,” said Statesman Editor Debbie Hiott.

The Statesman came out on top after a bidding war broke out among the New York Times, NPR, Fox News, AlJazeera America, and The Guardian. The Chinese People’s Daily also wanted to bid but was excluded by U.S. trade regulations. “We just wanted to keep local control to the extent possible,” Martin said.

The Statesman recently swept up most of the major awards in statewide journalism competition—including on March 29 being named Newspaper of the Year for the second consecutive year. Statesman reporter J. David McSwane won the large newspaper division for Star Investigative Report of the Year.

A long strange trip

Community Newspapers in Fierce Competition

Independents Survive Against Cox-Owned Papers, Upstart 'Community Impact' Carving a New NicheAt first glance, Austin seems the typical modern American two-newspaper town: a mid-sized...

The growing monopoly

Cox Gobbles Up Publications

Rob Patterson’s story published August 5 provides an excellent overview of the community news publications operating in Travis, Williamson and Bastrop counties. Patterson does a thorough job of getting at not only the financial competition but the quality of journalism being practiced.

The bottom line is all the newspapers covered seem to be doing the best they can with the resources they’ve got. Of course, the resources are generally never enough. Most, if not all, of the publications Patterson covered are operated with a bare-bones staff.

But, as Will Hampton, communications director for the City of Round Rock, and a former editor of the Round Rock Leader says, “The quality of the coverage is more dependent on the reporter than who they work for....” Whenever a good reporter comes along at any publication—someone with fire in the belly and the moxie to make sense of what they’re covering—the readers will be well served.

Community Newspapers Alive and Well

Posted Wednesday August 4, 2010 10:51pm
Community Newspapers Locked in Fierce
Competition for Readers and Advertisers

Independents Survive Against Cox-Owned Papers,
Upstart 'Community Impact' Carving a New Niche
Investigative Report by Rob Patterson
© The Austin Bulldog 2010

At first glance, Austin seems the typical modern American two-newspaper town: a mid-sized city with a daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, and an alternative newsweekly, The Austin Chronicle. Focus more closely and a different newspaper landscape emerges.

The greater Austin area also boasts 15 community papers published from one to three times a week, and a five-year-old rapidly expanding chain of monthly papers, Community Impact Newspaper, that target seven local areas. Also in the mix are two weeklies for the African-American community, three Spanish-language weeklies, a South Asian community monthly, and a center city weekly, The Austin Times, that seems to largely fly under the radar.

Community Newspapers MapIn dire times of flagging circulation and sagging advertising dollars for print dailies, community newspapers remain one bright spot for print journalism. With 22 general audience community non-daily newspapers, and one small daily in Taylor, the Greater Austin area appears, by the numbers at least, to be rather well served by such publications.

Nine of those papers are owned by the same Cox Media Group as the American-Statesman, a subsidiary of the Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises Inc. Operating these 10 Austin-area newspapers under the same corporate roof raises obvious questions the editorial independence and local commitment of the nine community papers. These concerns first surfaced in 2000 when Cox purchased six of them—the Bastrop Advertiser, Lake Travis View, North Lake Travis Log, Pflugerville Pflag, Smithville Times, and Westlake Picayune—from Westward Communications. Concerns were elevated when Cox’s Austin Community Newspapers Group later bought the Round Rock Leader and started the Leander Ledger and Cedar Park Citizen.

Any fears that the Cox community papers might eschew or significantly compromise their local news mission under the same corporate umbrella as the Statesman have proven largely unfounded, though some observers do say the news coverage provided may not be all it could be.

The acquisitions and launching of papers by Cox has not created a juggernaut to destroy the area’s community media. Independently owned papers include the Oak Hill Gazette and West Austin News, both weeklies, and the twice-weekly Williamson County Sun. Also on the list of community papers are the twice-weekly Hill Country News, which covers Cedar Park and Leander, its Four Points News edition for the Lake Travis area, the Hutto News, and Taylor Daily Press. All four of these are part of the Taylor-based Granite Publications chain of 22 Texas community papers.

Bulldog Investigations Draw Attention

While we've been out pursuing other investigations, the regional press has been following and building on our work.The latest recognition comes courtesy of The...

Welcome to The Austin Bulldog

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." —Abraham Lincoln

Thanks for visiting The Austin Bulldog, a small but scrappy entry into the field of journalists covering the scene in Austin, Texas.

While April Fool's Day may seem an inauspicious day to launch a new publication, we thinkit's