Fighting for life, Texas Observer close to $200K goal after one day

That night, the Texas Tribune dropped a report about the impending and immediate shutdown of Monacelli’s employer, the Texas Observer, an almost 70-year-old liberal Texas publication for which he had been writing on contract since last July. The next morning, it was made official. The board, with only two holdouts, had voted to shutter the magazine and fire all employees, effective Friday, March 31.

To say that the overall widespread reactions to the end of the Texas Observer were merely sorrowful would be an under-sell. Famously once helmed by firebrand political commentator Molly Ivins and still responsible for left-leaning watchdog reporting, the only folks cheerleading for the publication’s demise were among the same conservative faction of Texans directly in the path of the Observer’s muckraking. 

But just one day later, a GoFundMe started by the publication’s now-former managing director has raised over $180,000 in an effort to stave off the end of the Texas Observer.

“I thought we might see, maybe, $50,000,” James Canup tells MySA on Tuesday morning, March 28. “And even that felt optimistic.”

Canup was in attendance on Monday morning, March 27, when the board officially informed staff that what they had read in the Texas Tribune was true. Already set to resign mid-April and having sketched out a framework for the GoFundMe just in case, Canup sped up that process, quitting immediately and starting the fundraiser.

He set the goal for $100,000 initially, but had to raise it before the night was through. Asked if he’s optimistic that $200,000 could actually save the publication — the initial idea was to use the money to soften the blow for fired staffers — Canup says that the sharp increase in support is heartening to the cause.

“My optimism is probably better than 50% at this point,” he says. “I think that the ball is really in the court of the board of directors — I would suggest that it would be foolish of them to turn their back on this level of support.”

It’s unclear exactly what staffers knew about the financial health of the Texas Observer. The summer of 2021 was a turning point for the organization, when, a former staffer says, the magazine received a smaller grant than usual from the Ford Foundation, which caused some panic among higher ups. That organization’s grants database indicates that it had given the Texas Democracy Foundation, whose board governs the magazine, $200,000 in 2014, $400,000 in 2016, $300,000 in 2020, and $150,000 in 2021. It did not provide large funding to the Texas Observer in 2022.

Still, Monacelli says that he was not aware of an existential threat to the Observer, particularly in light of recent large pledges to the Texas Democracy Foundation. One full-time staffer, in conversation with a former member of the magazine’s editorial team, told the latter that they had no idea that the magazine was in immediate danger.

One possibility for the rate of surprise is the incredible turnover at the magazine since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The shutdown follows years of leadership shakeups at the magazine, including three different top editors in the last three years. Andrea Valdez left the Texas Observer for the 19th News in 2020 and Tristan Ahtone quit the following year following a prejudicial comment toward him by another staffer that went unpunished. Gabriel Arana, who joined in 2021, would be the final Texas Observer editor if the layoffs stick. 

Additionally, publisher Mike Kanin resigned in October 2021, as did multiple longtime editors and writers, including executive editor Megan Kimble, managing editor Danielle Lopez, and environmental reporter Amal Ahmed, who left in late 2021 amid a fight with Arana.

The in-fighting doesn’t stop there.

On Monday, board president Laura Hernandez Holmes told the Texas Tribune that in the last few months, disagreements with the staff, in particular, Arana, “sucked all the energy and focus away from maintaining the financial health of the org.”

“I did struggle with some serious and false and hurtful attacks on my character by the editor,” Hernandez Holmes said, noting that the attacks were retracted but that she never received an apology from Arana.

Arana, alongside digital editor Kit O’Connell, senior editor and writer Lise Olsen, and editor-at-large Gayle Reaves, signed a letter to the board on Monday. It outlined some requests, including asking board members who voted for immediate closure to resign, adding a staff member to the board, adding at least one nationally recognized journalists familiar with nonprofits in crisis to the board, and, crucially, for an emergency fund of $200,000, raised through GoFundMe, be used to forestall layoffs for at least a month.

The letter gives the board until close of business on Wednesday, March 29, to respond. Until then, all the staff can do is wait, as the gap between the funds raised and the goal narrows. In the time it took me to write this story, people donated $10,000 to the prospect.

“The GoFundMe results indicate that there is a widespread and massive nationwide constituency of the Observer who want it to survive and thrive,” Canup says. “This sends a message that now is not the time for the Texas Observer to die.”