Journalists at the Texas Observer are urging their nonprofit board to reconsider closing the progressive magazine. They proposed an emergency $200,000 fundraising appeal to keep the 68-year-old publication open.
It’s not clear how the board will respond to those demands. All but two members of theThe two dissenters were Peter A. Ravella, the board treasurer, and Eileen Smith, a writer and editor. Ravella had already announced that he was stepping down from the board this week, as he is selling his Austin home and moving with his wife to Olympia, Washington.
“If the board is throwing in the towel, it’s hard to reverse that,” Frump said. “If they want to keep it alive, it has a chance.” “I did struggle with some serious and false and hurtful attacks on my character by the editor,” Hernandez Holmes said. “I understand these attacks were circulated to other members of the staff. I do also understand that these false attacks by the editor were later retracted, but I never received an apology. These attacks on me, and the attacks on the board, kind of just sucked all the energy and focus away from maintaining the financial health of the org in the last couple of months.
“I don’t know if it’s because I’m a young woman of color talking to men,” she said. “I often wonder if my requests and directives would have been better received coming from a man. I was not respected as the board president by senior staff. To survive, the Observer was relying on a $1 million pledge from a family foundation run by a wealthy Austin couple, Greg Wooldridge and. The foundation had disbursed $400,000 and was in discussions with the staff over the remaining $600,000.
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