{"id":116087,"date":"2022-12-27T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2022\/12\/27\/john-thornton-texas-tribune\/"},"modified":"2022-12-27T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T16:00:00","slug":"john-thornton-texas-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2022\/12\/27\/john-thornton-texas-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"T-Squared: John Thornton, the Tribune\u2019s founder, is stepping down from our board after 13 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for The Brief<\/a>, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.<\/em><\/p>

These things happen in threes. In January, I became the first of the Tribune\u2019s trio of leaders at launch to announce plans to step down<\/a>. What I knew at the time but few others did was that Ross Ramsey, our managing editor on day one and our executive editor nearly ever since, intended to exit himself<\/a> in just a few months.<\/p>

That left John Thornton. Ross and I were co-founders of our nonprofit news org. John was our founder \u2014 the visionary venture capitalist who hired us away from good jobs to take a leap of faith on behalf of public interest journalism and join him in a well-meaning but uncertain effort to build a mission-driven media brand<\/a>. John was our first money in, our first board chair and an active member of our board all these years. Turns out that\u2019s coming to an end, too. At the end of 2022, he\u2019s giving up his board seat. The transition from founding to sustaining will be complete.<\/p>

Not enough has been said or can be said about John\u2019s role or contribution. None of this \u2014 none of us, none of you \u2014 would be here without him. He had the idea that Texas needed a reliable, credible, independent source of news and information, a means of raising the level of civic engagement and civilizing the conversation about issues and ideas. He recruited me to be CEO<\/a> and helped convince reporters and other potential staffers that we were serious and had a chance to succeed. He passed the hat among friends and acquaintances and collected pledges that allowed us to staff up and get the thing off the ground. He worked his connections at national foundations to get us on their radar screens \u2014 relationships that remain critical today.<\/p>

John was the inspiration, the motivation, the proud papa, the loyal friend who tells you the difficult things you need to hear and holds you accountable, and always, always the smartest person in the room. More than anything, he was the true believer \u2014 he never stopped carrying the flag for this thing we were doing \u2014 and he made us true believers.<\/p>

It is also the case that nonprofit journalism across the country would not be here without him. Because John founded the Tribune, dozens of communities from coast to coast and border to border have their own news orgs patterned after ours. They followed in our footsteps, but really they followed in his.<\/p>

And because John went on to co-found the American Journalism Project<\/a>, a venture philanthropy firm dedicated to starting and growing local news nonprofits, his impact on our industry and our democracy has been many times greater. When the modern history of journalism is written, John will be celebrated for all he accomplished and all he enabled. He\u2019s a pathbreaker. A change agent. A public citizen. A hero.<\/p>

Point of personal privilege: He\u2019s my hero. I have been lucky over more than 30 years to build a career I\u2019m proud of \u2014 and to have been more successful than I deserved to be. I had a handful of really great jobs, notably at Texas Monthly, where I was the editor for many years. But nothing compares to the Tribune. This was the place where I did my very best and most important work, where every day I got to be a force for good. Where I got to change lives. Where I got to make this state I love so much better by making my friends and neighbors better informed. That\u2019s all because of John. I\u2019m forever in his debt.<\/p>

He\u2019ll be gone in a few weeks, but he\u2019ll never be far away. His voice will live in the heads of everyone at the Tribune, including and especially my successor<\/a>, Sonal Shah. She knows how important John is to our origin story \u2014 to our values. At the same time, she knows that 2022 is the year of the passing of the torch. It says a lot about how far the Tribune has come that the founders, the three of us, feel good about taking our leave.<\/p>

Thank you, John, for everything.<\/p>

Disclosure: Texas Monthly has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, 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\u2019s journalism. Find a complete list of them here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The visionary venture capitalist had the idea for our nonprofit news org and put the people and money in place to bring it to life. We would not be here today without him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":179862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"everlit_article_id":"","everlit_hide_embed":false,"everlit_embed_size":"","everlit_generation_settings":[],"_everlit_article_id":"","_everlit_hide_embed":false,"_everlit_embed_size":"","_everlit_generation_settings":[],"_everlit_content_hash":"","_everlit_metadata_hash":"","newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"By [Author id=85]Evan Smith[\/Author]","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_photon_skip_featured_image":false,"_photon_quality_featured_image":0,"manual_modified_date":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":true,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"tt_series":[272],"coauthors":[124],"class_list":["post-116087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tt_series-t-squared","entry"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nFounder John Thornton steps down from Texas Tribune board after 13 years<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The visionary venture capitalist had the idea for our nonprofit news org and put the people and money in place to bring it to life. 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He died March 29.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/topics\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"John Thornton, co-founder of The Texas Tribune, speaks at TribFeast in Austin on Sept. 24, 2022.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/22P_TexasTribuneFeast0923AllFilesHighResSarahBork-423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/22P_TexasTribuneFeast0923AllFilesHighResSarahBork-423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/22P_TexasTribuneFeast0923AllFilesHighResSarahBork-423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/22P_TexasTribuneFeast0923AllFilesHighResSarahBork-423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/22P_TexasTribuneFeast0923AllFilesHighResSarahBork-423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":110040,"url":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2022\/02\/24\/ross-ramsey-retire-texas-tribune\/","url_meta":{"origin":116087,"position":1},"title":"T-Squared: Ross Ramsey, our executive editor and co-founder, will retire on May 1 after more than four decades in journalism","author":"Evan Smith","date":"Feb. 24, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A beloved reporter and columnist who knows more about Texas politics than just about anyone alive, he\u2019s been instrumental to the Tribune\u2019s operations and evolution. No him, no us. Our success is his legacy.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/topics\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune executive editor and co-founder, is retiring from the Tribune on May 1.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ross20Ramsey20T20Squared20JF-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ross20Ramsey20T20Squared20JF-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ross20Ramsey20T20Squared20JF-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ross20Ramsey20T20Squared20JF-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ross20Ramsey20T20Squared20JF-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":92323,"url":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2019\/08\/29\/texas-tribune-new-board-members\/","url_meta":{"origin":116087,"position":2},"title":"T-Squared: Meet our newest board members","author":"Evan Smith","date":"Aug. 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"We're so pleased to welcome six distinguished new directors to The Texas Tribune's board: an ambassador, an education secretary, a superlative journalist, a tech visionary, an investor with big public media cred and a nonprofit stalwart.","rel":"","context":"In "State Government"","block_context":{"text":"State Government","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/topics\/state-government\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Clockwise from top left: Jane Borochoff, founder and executive director of Educational Programs Inspiring Communities; Matt Thompson, editor-in-chief of the Center for Investigative Reporting; Antonio Garza, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico; Margaret Spellings, president and CEO of Texas 2036; independent investor John Chao; and Larry Irving, president and CEO of Irving Group.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/New20Board20Members202019-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/New20Board20Members202019-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/New20Board20Members202019-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/New20Board20Members202019-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/New20Board20Members202019-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":82616,"url":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2010\/01\/25\/note-chairman\/","url_meta":{"origin":116087,"position":3},"title":"A Note from Our Chairman","author":"John Thornton","date":"Jan. 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Twelve weeks in, I owe you, our audience \u2014 which to say, our stakeholders \u2014 an update on how the Tribune is doing. Here\u2019s where we stand on some key metrics.","rel":"","context":"In "State Government"","block_context":{"text":"State Government","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/topics\/state-government\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"John Thornton, Chairman of The Texas Tribune","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tt-thortonjohn-1.png?fit=550%2C370&quality=80&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tt-thortonjohn-1.png?fit=550%2C370&quality=80&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tt-thortonjohn-1.png?fit=550%2C370&quality=80&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":84719,"url":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2009\/11\/03\/chairman-speaks-why-im-doing\/","url_meta":{"origin":116087,"position":4},"title":"The Chairman Speaks: Why We’re Nonprofit","author":"John Thornton","date":"Nov. 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The provider of most public goods is government. But even though the U.S. ranks somewhere between Burkina Faso and Uranus in our per capita federal spending on public media, Congress will not come rushing to the aid of capital-j journalism anytime soon. There are simply too many competing priorities, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "State Government"","block_context":{"text":"State Government","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/topics\/state-government\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"John Thornton, Chairman of The Texas Tribune","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tt-thortonjohn-1.png?fit=550%2C370&quality=80&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tt-thortonjohn-1.png?fit=550%2C370&quality=80&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/tt-thortonjohn-1.png?fit=550%2C370&quality=80&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":100618,"url":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2020\/10\/23\/texas-polls-2020-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":116087,"position":5},"title":"Should you trust political polls going into the 2020 election? That’s the wrong question.","author":"Alana Rocha","date":"Oct. 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Watch The Texas Tribune's co-founder and executive editor, Ross Ramsey, break down what voters need to ask when considering a poll's results.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/topics\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ATX20Early20Voting20Day20Two20MG20TT2016-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ATX20Early20Voting20Day20Two20MG20TT2016-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ATX20Early20Voting20Day20Two20MG20TT2016-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ATX20Early20Voting20Day20Two20MG20TT2016-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ATX20Early20Voting20Day20Two20MG20TT2016-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"author_name":"Evan Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116087"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206896,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116087\/revisions\/206896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116087"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=116087"},{"taxonomy":"tt_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tt_series?post=116087"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=116087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}