Fifty Years of the Texas Observer

By Rod Davis

Book Overview

The Texas Observer began publishing in Austin in 1954, and in the past five decades it has been an important voice in Texas culture and politics. Following in the muckraking tradition of George Seldes and I. F. Stone, the Observer has championed honest government, civil rights, labor, and the environment, providing a platform for many of the state's most outspoken writers - Roy Bedicheck, Willie Morris, Molly Ivins, Amado Muro, Maury Maverick, Jim Hightower, and Dagoberto Gilb, to name a few. To mark the Observer's fiftieth anniversary in 2004, Char Miller has gathered a cross-section of the best work to appear in its pages. While the Observer has ventured beyond Texas in its editorial coverage, Miller has chosen pieces that specifically speak to the state's politics, people, environment, culture, and locales. With a foreword by Molly Ivins, these pieces form a progressive chronicle of a half-century of life in Texas.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595340009
• ISBN13: 9781595340009
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Trinity University Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Texan and Progressive...not a contradiction in terms

The Texas Observer has a well-deserved reputation for asking the tough questions which our state government (still famous for a 'good-old boy' reputation) wishes would just be quiet instead. As an investigative journalist myself, I always have looked to the Observer for inspiration and comfort. Their own perserverance reminds me that our job is often thankless, but a passion for justice is one of a journalist's most effective tools. For all of my frustration with the current status of Texas/National politics, these pages remind me times were once much worse in Texas. When segregation was still considered matter of fact, the Observer pushed ahead with the 'radical' idea that all people deserved human rights. Finally, the Observer produced such now-nationally recognized figures as Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins. Ivins continues to cheer me up today with her right-on commentary that George W. Bush is a danger to the world, and not all Texans approve of him (or had even wanted him involved with any kind of government).

Yes Virginia, there is civilization in Texas.

The best progressive writing and independent journalism in the Great Lone Star State. Like The Nation, the TO is beholden to none of the corporate interests that taint most of the corporate news. Remember what journalism used to, and should, be.