The following excerpt was sent out from the Texas Tribune:
Three days after voting to cease publication and lay off its journalists, the nonprofit publisher of the Texas Observer said on Wednesday that it would change course and keep the 68-year-old liberal magazine going, following an emergency appeal that crowdsourced more than $300,000.
“Today, upon receiving significant financial pledges over the past few days, the Texas Observer board gathered to vote to reconsider previous board actions,” Laura Hernandez Holmes, the president of the board of the Texas Democracy Foundation, which publishes the magazine, said in a statement. “The vote to rescind layoffs was unanimous, and the board is eager to move the publication to its next phase.”
She praised the donors who had stepped forward and expressed “gratitude to the Observer’s staff for stepping up and working hard to keep the publication alive.”
The Observer still faces significant obstacles to its survival, however. Board members have acknowledged that they allowed the budget, which reached $2.1 million last year, to grow beyond what was sustainable. Its top business officer resigned on Thursday, and its chief fundraiser stepped down Monday, both in protest of the board’s decision to close the magazine. The fundraiser, James Canup, started the GoFundMe appeal hours after resigning.
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