With the growth of news deserts, communities without reliable local news sources often see an increase in the mistrust of media and other institutions, and residents are often victims of misinformation. But people in Texas and beyond are talking about solutions.
In this Texas Tribune conversation, part of our “We the Texans” project looking at the state of democracy in Texas, we’ll talk about news deserts in Texas, the real impact that communities are facing and what can be done to address the issue and ensure Texans across the state have access to reliable local news.
Join us at 12 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, at the Odessa College - Saulsbury Campus Center.
Panelists include Mitch Borden, Permian Basin reporter for Marfa Public Radio; Patrick Canty, publisher of The Odessa American; and Benjamin Toff, assistant professor, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Univ. of Minnesota, and co-author of "Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism." The event will be moderated by The Texas Tribune's regions editor Nic Garcia.
Doors will open at noon for lunch and the hourlong conversation will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Lunch will be provided by The Texas Tribune.
This in-person event will be live streamed for virtual attendees and will be available to watch on demand at texastribune.org/events.
Email us at events@texastribune.org
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Borden first got his start in radio while working at small radio stations across Alaska. He moved to West Texas in 2018 to join Marfa Public Radio as the station's first Permian Basin reporter. He lived in Midland-Odessa for over three years — reporting on the ups and downs of the oil industry, the COVID-19 pandemic and local politics. Now, Mitch is based in Marfa but continues to search out stories in the oil patch and beyond.
Canty has worked at Texas and California daily newspapers for more than 40 years, serving in a variety of capacities ranging from reporter and editor to publisher, a position he has held with the Odessa American since the summer of 2003. In addition to his publishing duties at the OA, Canty serves on several community-related boards, including the Education Partnership of the Permian Basin and the University of Texas Permian Basin President’s Advisory Council. He is also a member of the Basin Public Broadcasting Inc. board of directors. He is a past unit president of the California Newspaper Publishers Association and a past board president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association (TDNA) and the Texas Press Association.
Assistant professor, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota; co-author, “Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism”
Toff’s research broadly focuses on the changing relationship between news outlets, the public, and how people navigate the political information environment. He is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication and is the co-author of Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism. From 2020-2023, he was a senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford where he led the Trust in News Project, a 3-year inductive, public-centered, comparative research project examining the drivers of trust in news across Brazil, India, the UK, and the United States.
Nic Garcia is a proud Colorado native who fell in love with Texas. Born in Pueblo, he studied journalism at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Nic began his professional journalism career at Out Front, a Denver-based magazine that is one of the oldest LGBTQ news organizations in the U.S. He went on to work as a reporter or editor at Chalkbeat, The Denver Post and The Dallas Morning News. Most recently he was the politics editor at The Des Moines Register. Nic lives in Dallas and travels throughout the state as regional editor, overseeing reporters based in Lubbock, in West Texas, and Lufkin, in East Texas.
