John Thornton, a financier who benefited from his wealth and influence to start the task that appeared to be the revival of the local press in a time of the crisis, died by establishing Texas Tribune, a non -profit regional news organization, and the American press project, which supports local digital news rooms throughout the country, in Austin, Texas. It was 59.
A spokesman for the American press project said that his death, with suicide, followed a long struggle for mental health.
Mr. Thornton helped change the financial model of the sustainable local press when he established in 2009 Texas TribuneIt is a member of the organs supported by the organs, only digital, non -partisan. Tribune, who started with 11 reporters and editors, is largely focused on Texas State Policy, now links a news room that includes more than 50 employees covering local issues in all 254 provinces in the state, as well as a correspondent in Congress in Washington.
This success inspired Mr. Thornton to try to repeat the model at the level of the country with the American press project, which is the “charitable business” effort, as it was called, based in Washington. It started in 2019 Elizabeth GreenChalkbeat founder, a non -profit educational news organization.
Both the Tribune project and the press project aim to fill the gaps caused by the decline or disappearance of the old local news organizations in an era there was more Americans turning into remote corners of the Internet and social media for news-or something similar to them. This decline has exhausted the ranks of the correspondents who may have dismantled local corruption and follow the billions spent by the city’s governments and state governments.
The idea of ​​Mr. Thornton was to take advantage of the major charitable works, the wealthy donors and the supporters of the popular roots to create a non -profit digital news “that will play the role of the American newspaper, but it is funded as civil institutions, such as ballet”, Saraabeth Berman, CEO of the company American press projectHe said in an interview.
With the support of social thinking groups such as Emerson CollectiveFounded by Lauren Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs widow, and Arnold VenturesAnd based in Houston, the project raised more than $ 225 million to help finance 50 non -profit local digital news means in 36 states, in addition to providing strategic assistance.
It has doubled its first 22 size 200 journalistsAccording to the organization.
“It is not an exaggeration that John Thornton is not the American press-and saved it,” Ivan Smith, one of the founders of Tribune, said in a statement. “No one made him do so. He believed in standing and supporting, with his time and money, the correct type of news organizations throughout the country because he knew the consequences of the extensive, unparalleled need.”
However, Mr. Thornton – as an executive official Austin adventuresHe helped oversee more than $ 4 billion of management assets – his invasion in the press did not start as a Crusader for the truth.
“In my daily job, I am a legitimate capitalist, like a lot of others in my life, and I was born this one of a Seek to achieve financial gains,“He wrote on Tribune in 2009, and he is telling his original mission.” In 2007, my partners and me beat the steady decline in the American newspaper industry, which was $ 60 billion, must provide some financial opportunities to companies like us. “
He and his team in Austin Vetshers concluded that local newspapers seem to be a risky investment. But the dangers of the American political system seemed to them greater if their mission was not fulfilled. He added: “The commercial press” is very fragile for our democracy on which all the news and information we ask for work as responsible citizens. “
John Douglas Thornton was born on April 9, 1965, in Whitchita, was. After obtaining a diploma from the North Western Witchita School in 1983, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Trinity in San Antonio, and he first graduated in his class in 1987.
He worked for MCKINSEY & Company before heading to Stanford University, where he obtained a master’s degree in Business Administration in 1991. Then he joined Austin Ventures, where he led nearly 50 software investments.
Mr. Thornton recalls that the Austin Vetshers team “decided very quickly that there should be easier ways to make money” than investing in the press. in 2010 interview By reviewing the Columbia Journalism, he described a “vulgar” meeting in which he guarantees the saving proposals to publish more pictures of pets.
“I thought, it has passed two hours and the press has not been mentioned,” he said. “This is the time when the light continued for me, and perhaps the press in public service” is “the general good just like the national defense, the clean air, and clean water.”
Armed with more than just a mysterious concept, Mr. Smith, the former editor of the award -winning Texas Magazine, persuaded to be the Texas Tribune editor as president and president, Ross RamsayA prominent correspondent and editor in Texas, to be an executive editor.
“We had no work plan,” said Mr. Smith in an interview. “We did not have any research we conducted on this feasibility. We did not do any concentration groups. We did not have a piece of brown butcher from a barbecue restaurant that we had a scribble note about what we wanted to be this thing.”
As the first chairman of the Tribune, Mr. Thornton has made a first amount of one million dollars in the capital of the seed and another million dollars next year. By the end of 2009, Tribune attracted about $ 4 million of financing, including $ 500,000 from Houston gifts$ 250,000 from Fares Foundation And 2500 dollars each of more than 60 sponsors from companies.
It turns out that the money is spent well. Over the years, Tribune won the Pepodi and Edward R. Moro, among many things, was last year a Politzer Final Final To investigate it, in partnership with ProPublica and the PBS “Frontline”, in the police response to the 2022 group shooting at the Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Tribune was credited with inspiration for similar outlets throughout the country, including Calmness In California, Independent Nevada and Politzer-Inning Mississippi today.
By time, Mr. Thornton Stem From the Tribune Council in 2022, the organization raised about $ 120 million of individuals, institutions and companies. “I would like to describe it as a trick that deserves Hodini,” said Mr. Smith, who also stepped down at the time.
Mr. Thornton survived his wife, Erine Thornton, who married her in 2019, Tawzze, White Woy Drichol. His marriage to Jolly Blixley ended in divorce in 2010.
Mr. Thornton’s financial profession continued while he remained involved in the press. In 2016, he founded Chris Passte, Austin Vetshers’s partner for a long time Partners elsewhereIt is a company that invests in the limited software companies.
But the need to find new ways to speak in fact to power remained in front of the mind. In recent years, Mr. Thornton has seen the leading news model more important than ever, given the ongoing problems of local and regional newspapers and websites.
Mr. Thornton said in a 2020 interviews With Fox. And my response was, “Well, what would they push you to take it? “
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