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The Houston Landing, a newsroom that launched two years ago with $20 million in philanthropic commitments, announced today that it will shut down in mid-May and lay off all forty-three employees.
The decision, which was made by the board of the Landing, represents a costly and prominent—but, so far, rare—failure of a local news startup after the launch of scores of such ventures across the country as local newspapers have shrunk or folded.
“We are proud of the Landing’s coverage of Greater Houston and continue to believe deeply in the need for more free, independent journalism in our region,” Ann B. Stern, the chief executive of the Houston Endowment and the board chair of the Houston Landing, said in a statement. “This decision was difficult but necessary. Houston Landing’s reporting has made a meaningful impact in the community, but it struggled to find its long-term financial footing.”
In Houston, the rise and fall of the Landing seemed nearly to match the boom-and-bust cycle of the nation’s fourth-largest city and energy capital, a place known for its ambition, sprawl, and diversity. Announced in January 2022, the Landing secured big commitments from major funders: $7.5 million each from the Houston Endowment and the Kinder Foundation, $4 million from Arnold Ventures, and $1.5 million from the American Journalism Project—all spread out over three years.
But the Landing also spent quickly: $5.5 million in 2023 and $7.9 million in 2024. Last year, it spent $2 million more than it brought in. Last year, in its second year of operation, the Landing attracted just thirteen thousand newsletter subscribers and generated $80,000 in membership revenue—a pittance, given the size of the city.
The Texas Tribune, where I served as editor in chief from October 2021 until last September, was launched in 2008 with $1 million in seed money from its founder—the venture capitalist John Thornton, who died last month—and about $3 million in additional pledges and commitments. The Tribune began publication in 2009 and, fifteen years later, has a budget of about $15 million, which includes a mix of individual contributions, grants from foundations and endowments, corporate sponsorships, and revenue from an annual ideas festival.
Even with a long track record, meeting the revenue target requires substantial effort each year, and past performance is no guarantee of future returns—the Center for Public Integrity, a DC-based watchdog newsroom, is closing after thirty-six years in operation. The growth of the nonprofit news movement has meant more competition for donations and eyeballs. It’s largely a healthy development, but lately the pace of startups has slowed, and some newsrooms have joined forces. Last year, Reveal (originally known as the Center for Investigative Reporting) merged with Mother Jones, as did The Markup with CalMatters.
In hindsight, money was both a blessing and a curse for the Landing.
With a generous three-year runway, the Landing started hiring aggressively in the late summer of 2022, months ahead of launch. As its costs increased, the revenue did not match. Last year, the Landing generated just $430,000 in new revenue, including just $25,000 from major donors. By journalism standards, the Landing paid well, with many reporters making over $80,000 a year—hardly extravagant, but generous by the standards of Texas, a right-to-work state that has no state income tax.
The Landing also suffered from a lack of focus. Houston is a megalopolis. Was the aim to cover the city proper (population 2.3 million), all of Harris County (4.8 million), or the greater Houston metropolitan area (about 7.5 million—about as many people as live in Arizona)? Was the focus on community and service journalism, à la Documenters and Outlier Media? Or was it high-impact accountability reporting, like the illegal suspensions of homeless students and collisions of vehicles into oil pipelines that cause deadly leaks? The investigations landed prestige and awards for the Landing, but in a city where many residents lack basic civic information, the Landing didn’t attract and retain the kind of deep, loyal audience it needed to survive.
A go-it-alone mentality also contributed to the Landing’s struggles. The Houston Chronicle, owned by Hearst, is smaller than it used to be but remains a formidable presence, and is arguably Texas’s best newspaper, alongside the Dallas Morning News. Houston is undercovered, but it’s hardly a news desert, and Houston Public Media is also a strong source of free local news. The Landing failed to develop a broad and robust base of community support—not only with potential funders, but with the neighborhood associations, civic leaders, and community groups that would help spread the word.
Finally, leadership matters, and the governance challenges facing the Landing were considerable. The board comprised just six members, three of whom were representatives of the three biggest funders. Smaller boards are nimbler, enabling faster decision-making, but also mean less input and participation.
Of critical importance, the Landing hired a CEO in June 2022: Scott McClelland, the former president of H-E-B Food/Drug Stores. Beloved by Texans, H-E-B operates 390 stores in Texas and Mexico. McClelland brought business savvy and a rich network of contacts. He made critical hires—Mizanur Rahman, investigative editor of the Chronicle, as editor in chief, and Emily Keeton, a startup innovator with deep roots in the Houston tech scene, as chief operating officer. The American Journalism Project, which committed $1.5 million in seed funding, had conducted research for two years starting in 2020 into the community’s information needs, but found itself shut out of key decisions and backed away from regular involvement in the Landing’s operations.
Weeks before the publication’s launch, in February 2023, McClelland stepped down as CEO, partly for health reasons. The board scrambled to find a replacement. Instead of conducting a competitive national search, the board quickly identified Peter Bhatia, a respected former editor of the Detroit Free Press, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Portland Oregonian, as McClelland’s replacement, at the recommendation of board member Jeff Cohen, a former top editor of the Houston Chronicle who now advises Arnold Ventures, the philanthropic arm of Houston couple John and Laura Arnold.
I’ve known Bhatia for close to thirty years. The son of an Indian father, he has been a pioneering Asian American newsroom leader and has the utmost integrity. However, Bhatia had not run a digital-only operation, hadn’t worked extensively in nonprofit fundraising, and didn’t know Houston well. (In June 2023, I visited the Landing to share perspectives with Bhatia and his team, and was impressed by the talented people around him.)
With a strong background in journalism, Bhatia clashed with his top editor, and in January 2024 he fired Rahman and a Pulitzer-winning reporter, Alex Stuckey, dismissals that received national attention. Soon after, in March 2024, the Landing’s journalists organized a labor union with the NewsGuild, which the Landing voluntarily recognized.
Like Bhatia, Rahman is a superb journalist with a strong track record of accountability journalism. But Rahman—who now works at the opinion section of the Washington Post—was committed to hard-hitting investigations; his model was more like a ProPublica for Houston, while most newsrooms funded by the American Journalism Project have focused on service journalism and audience engagement, which were not his strengths. (Ironically, the Houston Chronicle is part of a statewide ProPublica–Texas Tribune investigative initiative that was just announced last week.)
Bhatia hired some terrific journalists—Manny García, the current editor in chief, was previously the top editor at the Austin American-Statesman, and Angel Rodriguez, the managing editor, was previously in charge of Latino initiatives at the Los Angeles Times (where we both served on the masthead). They began to focus the editorial strategy around education, immigration, climate and governmental accountability. The Landing’s journalism has continued to have impact.
But in the end, the gap between board and staff, between management and labor, and between runway and revenue was just too large to bridge.
“While it’s with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of our newsroom, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the dedicated journalists and staff members who poured their passion into our mission every single day,” Bhatia said in a statement. “Houston Landing demonstrates how a commitment to truth and accountability can transform communities and improve lives. I’m thankful to those who believed in us, supported us, and stood with us as we connected with each other through stories that inspired positive change.”
Michael Ouimette, the chief investment officer of the American Journalism Project, said in a statement that building a sustainable nonprofit newsroom requires “bringing the right pieces together,” from strategy to leadership to community engagement. “While Houston Landing’s closure is disappointing, it’s not part of a broader trend,” he told me. “Across the country, we’re seeing local news organizations diversify their revenue and grow. In 2024, more than 80 percent of the organizations in our portfolio increased their revenue, and together they generated over $125 million. That kind of growth gives us real reason for optimism.”
The board of the Landing confirmed on Tuesday that it has “entered into discussions with the Texas Tribune, which is exploring the possibility of establishing a Houston news initiative as part of its broader strategy to expand local journalism and serve more Texans.”
Sonal Shah, the chief executive of the Tribune, said in a statement: “We look forward to exploring how we can learn from what the Landing started and create a sustainable model that serves the Houston community.”
However, the Tribune is preoccupied with its own local initiatives—it’s creating news teams in Waco and Austin, projects I helped initiate during my time at the Tribune. And on Friday, Shah announced that she would be stepping down as the Tribune’s CEO at the end of the year. The Tribune’s board has retained executive recruiter Ann Blinkhorn to conduct a national search for her successor. While everyone is hopeful that the Tribune might someday be able to provide local news for Houstonites as part of a networked model, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. The loss of the Landing hurts for Houston, for Texas, and for anyone who cares about the future of local news.
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