Contributions from Gerald Jones, Zoe Hein, and Fernando Cruz Rivera

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit digital news organization based in Austin, Texas. Since 2011, the news source has hosted an annual three-day festival in downtown Austin, with this year running from September 5-7. Through different events and sessions, the Texas Tribune brought in hundreds of speakers ranging from elected officials to podcast hosts, attempting to foster civil discourse about current events. Megaphone reporters Gerald Jones, Zoe Hein, and Fernando Cruz Rivera had the opportunity to attend the festival; here are some of the weekend’s takeaways:

September 5th @ 7:00 PM in the Paramount Theatre – Opening Keynote

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer started the Texas Tribune Festival with her opening keynote address. Highlights included support for abortion in light of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the origin of her nickname “Big Gretch” during her response to the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting her support for the bipartisan issue of “fixing the damn roads,” followed by some menstruation humor and feminist comments leading to her exclaiming, “it’s shark week motherfucker!” Interviewed by Texas Tribune co-founder Evan Smith, she discussed these in light of her new book, True Gretch. Notably, she condemned the attack on former President Trump, citing her experience undergoing an attempted kidnapping. The defense for those charged with planning the abduction of Gov. Whitmer was that they were swayed to do so by informants and federal agents, with some found not guilty.

September 6th @ 9:00 AM in the Capital Factory – The Texan Presents: If We Were in Charge

Republican Texas State Representative Candidates Brian Harrison, Mitch Little, and Shelley Luther took the stage to talk about their hopes for the future of the Texas legislature. Interviewed by Brad Johnson, Senior Reporter for The Texan, Luther explained her involvement in politics resulting from her imprisonment due to reopening her hair salon after a month of shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanking God for her survival after a brain aneurysm. Little discussed his defense of Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate impeachment trial, saying that the not guilty verdict was anything but guaranteed, not knowing how the Senate could rule until he got a call from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Harrison emphasized a vision for the future of the Texas House, arguing that the most recent legislative session was the “most liberal” in the state’s history due to procedural mechanisms Democrats used to stall legislation in committee before debate. The consensus of the three was the need for a Republican Speaker of the House to be elected within the caucus, rather than by the Democrats uniting with a few Republicans, paired with the removal of Democrat committee chairs and parliamentarians.

We had the opportunity to ask Little about the future of energy in Texas in light of the relevance of reforming ERCOT in the legislature and past power outages during winter freezes.  He expressed, among other policy prescriptions, optimism about the bipartisan nature of nuclear energy.

September 7th @ 9:00 AM in the Capital Factory – Next-Gen News

Graciela Mochkofsky, dean of Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia Journalism School, and Rachel Davis Mersey, dean of Moody College of Education at UT Austin, sat down with investigative journalist Theo Baker to discuss modern-day journalism. Baker brought up the pro-Palestine protests occuring at campuses across the country. These protests have impacted journalism students, making them the focus of the story, and inhibiting story coverage. Concern regarding student reporter safety arose as the deans expressed concern for advocating for freedom of the press. The panelists agreed that “journalism is a service […] to serve the public.” Journalists must “serve the national needs of the people.”

The panel discussion moved to the “crisis of enthusiasm” for journalism, paired with the fact that 85% of people do not get their news from mainstream outlets. Most of the younger and upcoming generation does not read the daily paper, and newspapers themselves are going out of business. Everything is turning digital, but audiences would rather scroll through social media than through a news article on their phones. The digital age makes it much easier to present misinformation because anybody can post what they think to be true, and convince audiences of the wrong things. The lack of enthusiasm presents a crisis to aspiring journalists because they will no longer have job opportunities. Mersey was eager to point out that we consume the news constantly in different forms, but that the real challenge now is “how we define news.” She discussed how social media affects viewers, and that the general public knows more than they realize.

The “biggest” challenge to journalism (in the panelists’ words): relevance, credibility, and trust. These keywords are what the deans believed to be the heart of what journalism should be, and they further explained that they do not blame the public for “not trusting the media.” They argued that people do not trust the media because they do not trust institutions, especially those with amassed power. Each emphasized the importance of local news in countering the decline in media trust by bringing important information to readers.

September 7th @ 9:00 AM in the Port Aransas Tent – Closing the Wealth Gap

Louise Story, the former senior editor at The Wall Street Journal, took the stage along with Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, to discuss the findings found in the book, “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap”. Moderated by Editor-in-Chief of the Texas Tribune, Sewell Chan, Story and Roy engaged in spirited conversation that sought to address the underlying systemic issues that contribute to the persistence of the wealth gap between white and black households. Story recounted the events that motivated her to explore this topic and emphasized that her findings are unique due to her analysis of median household income rather than average income, revealing that black households make 15 cents on the dollar compared to white households. Roy and Story also covered the possible reasons for the wealth gap divide’s continued presence, such as issues stemming from the historical treatment of black communities and disparities in the quality of education received by each group.

September 7th @ 10:45 AM at 800 Congress – Texas Country Reporter Presents: Growing Places

A common theme among the conversations along Congress Avenue is the continual struggles local authorities have coordinating with state and federal bodies to manage their towns through times of growth, expansion, and change. At the 800 Congress stage, three mayors from towns across Texas came together to discuss how each managed change within their communities, and the challenges faced by each. Dwayne Ariola, mayor of nearby Taylor, emphasized the importance of education and the initiatives taken under his leadership to promote trade school and community college education. Employment opportunities were a common point of discussion among the mayors of Brownsville and Live Oak, each having to negotiate with multi-million dollar companies such as SpaceX and IKEA to ensure that their communities were guaranteed long-term security against any potential economic crisis that affected household income or employment status. Each mayor had a different solution to address poverty and boost community welfare, such as Mayor Cowen of Brownsville advocating for increasing employment opportunities in the local gas industry to alleviate poverty in his city. Meanwhile, Mayor Ariola opted for investment into construction and trade positions to account for the increased demand the Samsung plant would bring in.

September 7th @ 2:45 PM at Stateside Theater – DEI RIP

Texas State Representative Rafael Anchia, Peniel Joseph, Director at the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at LBJ School of Public Affairs, and Laura Murillo, President and CEO of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce sat down in discussion with Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post, to detail their fight for DEI in Texas. The ‘fall’ of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) resulting from Texas law concerns DEI proponents. Each panelist began by stating how DEI helped them in the workplace, and how they observed it helping others. Anchia stated, “DEI makes our companies better [and that we must] employ diverse voices.” Murillo offered her perspective that DEI has helped the city of Houston progress as one of the most diverse cities in the country.

Joseph expressed extreme concern about the “backlash that refuses racial equity.” He asserted that “Anti-DEI equals the Jim Crow Laws.” The panel advised the audience to  “resist immoral political behavior.” 

Joseph and Murillo spoke about the incorrect assumption that people of color gain a ‘pass’ in the workplace simply because they are not white. Murillo recounted how her mother built herself up from nothing and successfully raised her daughter to be a first-generation student. She then talked about her own daughters and their major successes in the workplace, not because of their skin color, but because of their wit and academic integrity–emphasizing the perspective that DEI is not in opposition to meritocracy.

Murillo commented, “We must tell our stories, or they will tell them for us.” In response, Anchia said that the United States of America needs to “bury Trumpism,” and that his hope is for the Republican party to change and reformulate. “If we return to aspirational republicanism, it would be so much better.” In response, Joseph argued that “those of us who live in Texas right now do not live in a democracy.”

Having the opportunity to peek into the thoughts, opinions, and endeavors of everyday people and professionals to the most battle-hardened political actors, the Texas Tribune Festival offered a valuable opportunity to become familiar with the issues Texans face. In the shadow of the Texas Capitol along Congress Avenue, the future of Texas was discussed, deliberated, and dissected; cutting past the rhetoric there were genuine attempts at understanding who would be deciding the future of Texas, and what it would look like. Any Southwestern student can attend the festival and is highly encouraged to do so for future engagement in these important and relevant topics.