Friends,
Coming to you with good news: The Civic publishes its first Weekly Brief next Tuesday, May 5th. The opening column, “San Antonio Has to Choose Growth,” lays out the argument we’ll be making consistently: that this city has every ingredient for growth and is choosing not to grow, and that the consequences of that choice show up in school closures, budget deficits, and tax hikes. But, importantly, we can choose to do things differently and San Antonio can be genuinely great if we do.
Many of you know me, but for those who do not: I am Philip Reichert, Editor of The Civic. I’d like to thank everyone for their involvement so far, big or small. The people reading this backed this project before there was anything to read, and we appreciate that immensely. Those of you who generously joined as Charter members are listed on our website.
Two things:
The launch is Tuesday morning. Over the coming weeks, we will have more content delivered every week to your inbox: deep-reported columns, dozens of records requests across every government entity in Bexar County, quality guest writing, and investigations into the programs and policies that shape San Antonio’s future. Our website is fully live at thecivic.com and will quickly fill with content.
We also made our first staff hire. Jarrett Whitener, most recently a reporter at Community Impact, joins us full-time on Monday, May 11th to help us cover everything going on in San Antonio.
When Tuesday’s piece lands, please share it. Send it to at least one person who should be reading us. Word of mouth is how local journalism scales!
More to come.
Philip Reichert