Three months after a Texas Observer investigation exposed how some payday loan companies aggressively pursue criminal charges against their customers, the state body that oversees the industry has issued an advisory telling companies to stop the practice.
Timothy Bolger, Katrina Longworth, Terrence McCoy, and Patrick Michels are finalists for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists.
The Colorado Springs Independent, Houston Press, Miami New Times and The Texas Observer have each won Sigma Delta Chi Awards from the national Society of Professional Journalists.
The Texas Observer has re-hired alt-weekly veteran Brad Tyer as managing editor.
Texas Observer executive editor Dave Mann talks about his extensive legal battle to obtain the strand of hair that led to the AltWeekly Award winning Public Service story, "DNA Tests Undermine Evidence in Texas Execution."
Early in his career as a sports writer for The Winchester Star in Winchester, Va., Dave Mann realized he “wasn’t too into sports journalism” and switched gears toward more long form, investigative reporting.
Texas Observer editor Bob Moser is leaving to become the executive editor of The American Prospect.
"Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins" had its world premiere Wednesday night at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. The play, which stars Turner as Ivins, offers a "complex, nuanced sense" of the former Texas Observer editor "in all her loud messiness," according to Politics Daily. Half the words in the play are from Ivins, and the other half were written by Margaret and Allison Engel. "The day after Molly died I was so upset that her voice was gone that I called Allison and said we have to do a show about her," Margaret says. "I felt she was our Mark Twain, our Will Rogers, and by 'ours' I meant the country's."
The Observer recently unveiled a redesign that was overseen by Austin-based Em Dash. "The challenge was to create a template that could be produced by one part-time art director with a $450 art budget per issue," Robert Newman writes. "The result: a sharp, smart, right on, low-budget, high-impact design, perfect for the magazine's mix of muckraking reporting and liberal politics." The Observer has also launched a redesigned website.
Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey has been awarded the 2009 MOLLY National Journalism Prize for a series about immigration. The awards, presented annually by the Texas Observer, recognize great American journalism and honor the memory of former Observer editor Molly Ivins. "Molly would have been thrilled at the scores of worthy entries and taken a little amused pride that this year's winner is a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper where she began reporting as a summer intern," Observer CEO and publisher Carlton Carl says.
