Editor-in-Chief, CEO talk state of Texas politics

A slew of students brought their best questions to Centennial Hall Tuesday in a Q&A session with Evan Smith, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Texas Tribune.

Smith opened the session by stating his career in journalism was purely “accidental.”

“I went to Washington D.C. thinking, ‘(Congressional work) is what I’m going to do when I get out of college,’” Smith said.

Smith described his congressional work for a representative of Minnesota and the Federal Election Commission as “mind-numbing” and “a soul-sucking experience.”

“I came back really kind of lost—lost academically and lost in terms of what I was going to do when I got out of school,” Smith said. “I never even gave thought to journalism.”

Smith’s love for journalism was ignited after he wrote his first political column. He then attended the graduate journalism program at Northwestern University and went on to hold positions at Texas Monthly. This magazine features contemporary pieces on Texas politics and industry.

In 2009, Smith co-founded The Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan media organization centered on the climate of state politics.

Regarding Texas politics, Smith said, “I’m often moved to tell people that in this state, this shit writes itself.”

All Texan citizens are affected by the policy the Capital legislates, Smith said.

“Our job is to get people to participate in this participatory democracy of ours,” Smith said. “The reason we started the Tribune five years ago was the coverage of public policy in state government was in deep decline.”

General elections in Texas are “nonexistent,” Smith said. He describes the political system in Texas as broken.

“I love Texas,” Smith said. “I love living in Texas, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t any areas that we need to be working on. The game is rigged.”

Smith discussed the importance of voting.

“The simple act of voting would be an improvement of where we stand right now,” Smith said. “If you don’t bother to vote, then you forfeit the right to complain about the results.”

People need reliable, unbiased information to be thoughtful and productive citizens, Smith said.

“We don’t want to tell people what to think,” Smith said. “Unfortunately, we have to tell people to think. We aren’t activists on behalf of one issue or another. We are activists on behalf of Texas.”

Positions for many media organizations are scarce, and print journalism is dwindling. However, Smith respectfully challenged a student’s notion that the number of jobs in journalism is turning downward.

“The world of journalism has blown up,” Smith said. “There are opportunities in journalism that have never existed before. There are so many more types of media than those that existed five years ago.”

High-quality journalism is often unconventional, and journalists must learn to think outside the box, Smith said.

“You all are basically Swiss army knives,” Smith said. “You have all these skills you can deploy coming out of a program like this.”

Tara Tavarez is a News Reporter with the University Star where is story originally published. It is reprinted here through a news partnership between the University star and San Marcos Corridor News.