The Texas Tribune Turns To IRL Events, Local Newsrooms To Reach New Readers

Editor’s note: We’re trying a new feature in some of our coverage where we put AMO’s Take. This comes from the team (in this case, AMO’s founder, Jacob) where we offer our thoughts on the story. Click here to read this article’s AMO’s Take.

It’s not cheap, quick or easy, but the Texas Tribune is doubling down on in-person events as it tries to expand readership across the state. It’s also planning to build local newsrooms to fill news holes for communities in need. 

The nonprofit newsroom is focused on covering state policies and politics. It is turning to intimate in-person events that build community as part of a new strategy to reach fresh audiences. Among other things, the Tribune is partnering with organizations that are tapped into Spanish-speaking communities and encouraging reporters to record short-form video clips in an effort to attract younger people. 

It’s all about putting audience first.

Beyond telling important stories that impact communities, they are printing and handing out guides and flyers about voting and air quality that serve both to educate communities and promote the brand. That will, hopefully,, turn into loyal readership and maybe even donations, which is the company’s main source of revenue.  

“That’s going to be key for us moving across the state is, how do we get out more to meet more Texans and introduce what we’re doing, instead [of expecting] them to Google and find us via search,” Matt Adams, director of audience engagement and growth at the Texas Tribune, told AMO. “As online audiences get smaller, we’re going to have to figure out how to work with that and how to engage with them more.”

Real Local News

This quarter, the Tribune will open a local newsroom in Waco after the community there reached out and asked for coverage.

The Tribune raised three years worth of funding for what is being called the Waco Bridge, which will pay for a staff of seven, Sonal Shah, chief executive officer of the Tribune, told AMO. A general manager will work to build out the membership and advertising to eventually self-support the site. The Bridge may have offices in a public building, like a library, to emphasize its role in the community. 

While Waco already has a local paper called the Waco Herald-Tribune, owned by Lee Enterprises, coverage has been limited, Shah said. The Tribune offered to partner with the existing newsroom—Shah said the response she got was skepticism and concern over the allocation of advertising revenue. The Waco Herald-Tribune didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Waco will do events, like the Tribune, and build out a membership base. While the Tribune is entirely civically focused, the Bridge will branch into local culture and non-political news.

“Whatever is needed for the community, this is about the community,” Shah said.

After the Waco Bridge, the Tribune will push into Austin. It already has a partnership with local NPR station WKUT and will expand coverage with them. The Tribune is also planning to acquire a small local news site to kick off its local presence. Like in Waco, the publication is open to partnering with the Austin American Statesman, owned by Gannett.  

“We’re going to start with small steps and build trust along the way,” Shah said. They are still raising money for the Austin project, and hope to kick off by the third quarter.

The expansions are a big bet for a nonprofit that in 2023 saw a drop in revenue and ended up laying off 11 staff members. Adams said 2024 picked up in terms of donations as the Tribune upped its game—including boosting the quality of its newsletters, with reporters and editors contributing more regularly. It’s good news, but the publication has a ways to go. 

The demographics are mainly white and 40-plus. Younger people may be less prone to reading long-form prose, and less familiar with the purpose and design of traditional news. As such, the Tribune is pushing reporters to do short-form video like YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels filmed on their phones and without any big production behind them. 

“They don’t want to see everything being overedited,” Adams said. “It’s like just talking to an audience.”

Smaller, Better Audiences

Shah understands that the key to The Tribune’s success is a heavy focus on audience.

Are people reading us? When are they reading us? How are they reading us? Why are they reading us? When are they dropping off? What’s causing them to drop off? But just making sure we are connecting with the audience. People should not see us as partisan. People should see us as good information for decisions they need to make in their lives or things that they want to know about their community. I think local news helps build community. We need to be thinking of ourselves and making sure we’re doing that.

Another area for growth is with Spanish-speaking communities. The Tribune has done little here despite an estimated Hispanic population of 40.2% compared to 39.8% who are non-Hispanic white Texans. But it’s an audience that needs information and they can build out.  

“Partnerships are really key for us to partner with other Spanish speaking orgs to try and find ways to get more of our resources out there to the readers who need them, instead of just hoping we publish in Spanish and they find it on the website actually, like going out and working with other orgs who have a newsletter list or something that we could send to to pull out the people that might need it,” Adams said. 

After writing about air quality issues in neighborhoods near a petrochemical complex close to Houston, Tribune journalists tag teamed with Spanish speakers to go out and meet community members and provide translated information beyond the story. 

“Those residents might not come to texastribune.org but we’re still reaching them, and we’re still bringing some brand awareness to them,” Adams said.

While the goal is to reach as many Texans as possible, the publication has no problem starting small. 

These more community engagement tactics that might involve a very small number of people to start, it might be 30 people came out for this or something, and we’ll have to expect to grow from that. We might have to do more introducing ourselves and really letting people know who we are and slowly building to that. And I think it’s going to take time, but I do think that’s where a lot of orgs should start to head.

The Tribune holds about 40 events a year, and “it might be 15 people [who attend], but 15 people builds trust, and those 15 people talk to another 15 people, right? It’s a process of starting, and a trust building exercise as a start,” Shah said.

“IRL events are definitely far more expensive,” Allan Li, co-founder at marketing company Ample Tech, told AMO. “However, the audience you will receive will be far more engaged vs online as they are unlikely to escape to their screens whilst at a live event.”

And if it proves not to work, so be it, Adams said. “We have to not be afraid to fail,” he said.   

“Some orgs are so afraid to fail, and they’re like, ‘oh, it’s gonna look so bad. It’s gonna ruin the brand or whatever,’” Adams said. “We have to be more open to that experimentation.” 

AMO’s Take

Texas Tribune’s events strategy is very smart primarily because of what Allan Li said: audience engagement. One of the major problems of the internet is it dehumanizes the pageview. Executives get so obsessed with how many people are reading that they forget each and every one of them is a person. Imagine if I told you that 100 people listened to you talk; you’d be thrilled. But tell someone that only 100 people read their article online and they feel let down.

But getting someone to engage with your brand and then become an evangelist is so powerful. Shah’s right that 15 people might tell another 15 people who might tell another 15 people. And when someone says to their family, “hey, I went to this Texas Tribune event, it was really great,” people are going to listen.

A big part of starting a new brand or initiative is doing things that don’t scale. Whenever someone churns from A Media Operator, our paywall provider sends an automated email alerting them. But I also email them and ask if there’s anything that we could have done better. I care about this brand and people see that. I’ve had some folks resubscribe after receiving that email.

One day, A Media Operator is going to be a much larger business with thousands—or tens of thousands—of paid subscribers. I won’t be able to send a unique email to every person or get lunch with a random reader like I do today. However, a big reason I believe we’ll get there is because of these unscalable exercises.

If you’re thinking about launching something new, figure out what unscalable things you can do that will create brand evangelists. It may be a lot of work, but it’ll give you an incredible foundation. Do the things that don’t scale. It’s something I’ve advocated publishers do for years.