A new date – Friday, April 8, 2022 – has been set for the next annual Friends of The Daily Texan dinner. Dinners planned for fall of 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to COVID-19 health concerns. The annual Friends dinner has been held in recent years in the Shirley Bird Perry Ballroom in The Texas Union on the UT campus, and that venue has been reserved for April 8 next year. As last year, the Friends group will fund scholarships for student staffers and award those virtually this fall. Despite cancellation of the two dinners, the Friends group has […]
Read more →From UT News AUSTIN, Texas — Experiential learning is expanding at The University of the Texas at Austin after Texas Student Media launched two new partnerships in which the organization will serve in an agency capacity. Texas Student Media will now provide support with a focus on developing new streams of advertising and underwriting to Texas A&M Student Media and The Drag, an audio production house in the Moody College of Communication at UT Austin. “We are excited about these new relationships and the impact they will have for our student experience, with new funding sources invested back into […]
Read more →From Fashion Weekly Daily and The Daily Front Row In the latest attempt to resuscitate comatose gossip site Gawker, a new editor in chief has been announced. Leah Finnegan, who previously served as a writer and features editor at the online publication from 2014-2015, has been named as its new top editor. (Finnegan was the 2008-2009 Daily Texan Editor-in-Chief.) Now owned by Bustle Digital Group, it’s the third effort at bringing the snarky site back to life. Finnegan tweeted to confirm the whispers put forward in a recent New York Times media column, with the simple statement: “The rumors are true.” The […]
Read more →WASHINGTON – William Valdez, a former Daily Texan staffer, has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as Under Secretary for Management, Department of Homeland Security. Valdez was one of nine individuals nominated to serve in key roles. Valdez covered national politics while at The Texan and attended and reported for The Daily Texan from the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit. He was a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman from 1980-84. The nine nominees are: William Valdez, Nominee for Under Secretary for Management, Department of Homeland Security Erik Hooks, Nominee for Deputy Administrator for Federal Emergency Management Agency […]
Read more →The Friends of The Daily Texan Board of Directors has voted to fund an additional scholarship for a Texan staffer, bringing the total to 5 annual grants provided by the Friends plus three generous grants from former Texan staffers. Those three additional grants include one from Becky and Jerry Conn, and two from John McConnico and Jean-Marc Bouju. The additional $1,000 annual Friends scholarship will go to a staff member who has shown an interest in sports coverage. In addition, two $500 runner-up awards to the Friends of The Daily Texan Award have been increased from $500 each to $1,000 […]
Read more →A portion of money raised during a recent fund-raising campaign by Friends of The Daily Texan, Inc. will be used to support the online effort of the student newspaper at the University of Texas. The board of directors of the Friends group recently voted to fully fund for a 12-month period the cost of infrastructure, web tools and technical support for the student newspaper’s recently relaunched website, thedailytexan.com. In addition, a portion of the grant would also allow employment of an intern to provide assistance and technical help in support of further growth and development of the website. The board […]
Read more →The ongoing Friends of The Daily Texan fund-drive has reached $31,460, all to be used for Texan scholarships, project needs and other items to support the student newspaper at The University of Texas at Austin. The recent fund drive focused on raising donations to replace revenue lost by cancellation of the Friends’ group 2020 annual dinner due to the pandemic. You may view the list of recent donors here: https://friendsofthedailytexan.com/donors-to-the-texan/ The fund drive began last September and brought in $8,700 between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020 from 40 donors. Continuation of the fund drive from Jan. 1 resulted in […]
Read more →Now, more than ever, The Daily Texan needs your help. When Covid-19 hit hard a year ago, The Daily Texan was prospering, excelling editorially, fully staffed. And Texas Student Media was headed for a strong year built around an aggressive budget. A year later, The Texan perseveres, making sure the UT campus gets the coverage it deserves and needs. The adjustment has not been easy. To weather the pandemic, student journalist salaries have been cut at The Texan, and staff reductions have taken place at Texas Student Media. The Friends of The Daily Texan, Inc., an 8-year-old non-profit founded to […]
Read more →Editor’s Note: Those who worked at The Daily Texan on the University of Texas campus in the 1960s, 70s and 80s remember “Mr. Hilburn.“ He was the editorial adviser to the student paper, and a renowned journalist himself before returning to Austin to work with the students. Bob Hilburn was also the cousin of author Larry McMurtry. Bob never mentioned that to Texan staffers. But when Hilburn was inducted into the Friends of The Daily Texan Hall of Fame in 2018 the photo with this article came from his wife Jeanette, and his daughter Sidney Hilburn, who provided this info: […]
Read more →Editor’s note: One of the best friends of The Daily Texan during the Erwin years has passed on. Vartan Gregorian had such a distinguished career that his early years at the University of Texas barely earn a mention in the NYT obit. But he is remembered for his helpful guidance and insight about faculty politics during some very tumultuous times that threatened the very existence of The Daily Texan. He orchestrated a big support dinner in 1971 that raised funds for a lawsuit against Erwin and the board of regents that ultimately preserved TDT’s independence. He was also a very […]
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