As a lifelong conservative and longtime observer and participant in Texas politics, it has been downright frustrating to see what the Texas media landscape has become in recent years.
There is, of course, the legacy “mainstream” media. While there are still a few reporters for these outlets who are committed to quality reporting without an agenda, they are increasingly rare. The inherent anti-conservative bias within the legacy media was put on full display with the Texas Tribune’s recent decision to hire Sonal Shah as their new Chief Executive Officer.
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Shah, a longtime Democratic political operative, has been open about her personal contempt for Texas conservatives. I’ll have a more in-depth piece about Shah in the next few days.
Then you also have network of websites which purport to report “news” from a conservative perspective but do nothing of the sort. These websites are the propaganda arm of a small group of prolific political donors. Their purpose is to create content that seemingly emanates from an independent source that is then used in connection with the political campaigns of candidates supported by those same donors.
These websites also serve as a professional outrage machine, posting clickbait articles with salacious headlines in order to get readers riled up. The truth all too often takes a backseat on these outlets.
I decided to start The Texas Voice because I saw a need for an honest, trustworthy source of information about Texas politics and government. With the 88th Legislative Session convening tomorrow morning, I believe there is an immediate need for a source of accurate information about what is happening in Austin. It is also important that this information be made available to the public at no charge, and not hidden behind a paywall.
I am launching The Texas Voice as a hobby and as a public service- I have a day job as an attorney and do not have major donors bankrolling this project (although voluntary reader support is welcome). While it is impossible to write about every issue that comes in front of the legislature, I do hope to provide information that is not available elsewhere. Any tips or story ideas can be sent to mark -at- thetexasvoice.com.
Thank you for reading The Texas Voice.
Mark McCaig
Publisher, The Texas Voice
