The Texas Democracy Foundation, the nonprofit parent of the Texas Observer, told its staff today that it is laying off employees – including journalists and editors – and ceasing publication on Friday, March 31, 2023.
This Go Fund Me was established so that readers and supporters of the Texas Observer can give a lifeline to staff and journalists who are becoming unemployed. I am James Canup and I have organized this campaign to benefit my former colleagues, having recently resigned from the Observer myself. I have launched this campaign with the knowledge of board and staff members. We ask you to contribute as generously as you can to provide cash assistance to staff who are being laid off. The Observer is not able to provide a sufficient severance package to laid-off staff due to a funding shortfall and disarray. If the board revisits its decision to cease publication and commence layoffs, funds raised here will be donated to the Texas Democracy Foundation to provide staff pay and benefits. Otherwise, funds raised here will be divided equally among the staff who are being laid off.
Those organizing this Go Fund Me campaign are striving to help journalists and staff to have some money as they take time to seek their next jobs, so that they can support their families despite losing their jobs through no fault of their own. You are invited to read some of the Observer’s recent journalism before deciding to contribute.
The impact of this shutdown on the current team is devastating. “Where else can I go to write a column on transgender issues that takes on the New York Times,” asked one writer. Another was in the process of planning paternity leave for his first child. Another was covering Texas’ war on public schools. “That’s not how a progressive magazine should treat its staff,” said one editor.
What does the Texas Observer mean to its journalists and to Texans? Editorial independence and journalistic freedom have been the hallmarks of the Observer since its founding in 1954. The publication has been freer – less encumbered by the demands of business, advertisers and grantmakers – than any other publication of its stature. As such, the institution has been a proving ground for countless journalists over the years and continuing to this day, and a vital watchdog to extremists, corporations and politicians who would harm Texas and Texans.
Will you help save the staff of the Texas Observer by contributing now?
