The Face the Nation host and I talked at length about the fate of the evening news, whether Katie Couric is doing a good job, why he’ll miss Tim Russert, and what he plans to do when he retires. The interview appears in our forthcoming October issue, but you can preview it here.

We’re getting ready to tape shows that will air this fall and next spring — they’ll be on beginning in early October — and the lineup is promising. Look for interviews with everyone from Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn to Matthew McConaughey and Lily Tomlin. As always, we’ll have a live audience for each one, and any of you is welcome to attend (and ask your own questions of the guest at the end). We’re still at the Austin City Limits Studio, at 26th and Guadalupe. The first taping I can tell you about for sure is Rick Noriega: October 2, 5 p.m. Hope to see you…

Not surprisingly — this being the Live Navel Gazing Capital of the World — everyone in Austin seems to have an opinion about what should happen to the daily paper, which Cox announced last week it was putting up for sale. There’s a lot of buzz about Hearst Corp., owners of the Houston and San Antonio papers, adding a third leg to the stool, which would presumably mean profitability through cost-cutting, no investment, combined bureaus and feature-writing staffs, etc. In today’s Statesman, an op-ed writer proposes what might be regarded as the exact opposite outcome: community ownership along the lines, I imagine, of the Green Bay Packers situation. (So Fred Zipp ends up editing Newsday?) The former is more likely than the latter, obviously, and also more soul-sucking to contemplate. Yes, the business model is broken, and yes, readers are gravitating online and not coming back. But I’m one of those who believes that print journalism isn’t dead, that journalism, period, isn’t dead, and that there’s still a place for a daily paper in a community like Austin, which cares about news and views and issues and ideas. Maybe, as still others have argued, a rich individual without a history in the media biz but with a real commitment to journalism in the public interest and with the ability, unliked a public company or a big corporate concern, to worry less about profits than product is the answer. There are certainly many such people in Austin. Fingers crossed. As for Dan Patrick’s trial balloon … let’s just say that the day that guy owns the Statesman, or is allowed to buy it, is the day monkeys fly out of John Kelso’s beard.

There’s a point at which one’s continued attempt to erect procedural roadblocks to a contested election is revealing of, you know, one’s total lack of stones. I don’t know Wendy Davis, don’t know Kim Brimer, and don’t particularly care about their race for a Tarrant County-centered seat in the Texas Senate (except to the extent that I believe, and have always believed, that a race posed as a choice between two candidates and two philosophies, whoever the candidates and whatever the phiosophies, serves the voters better than one party automatically winning the general election because the other party couldn’t or didn’t field a challenger). But I do subscribe to Harvey Kronberg’s Daily Buzz, and so I’ve been peppered on a couple of different occasions with news that Brimer is trying to kick Davis off the ballot: because, apparently, she hadn’t properly resigned from her city council seat to run for the Senate, or because she had the nerve to run against the great Kim Brimer, or because she’s a chick–something like that. But it’s been ongoing. Time and again Brimer throws something at the wall, and time and again it fails to stick. Today, Harvey’s Buzz-bot pinged me to say that the Texas Supreme Court is going to be awakened from its slumber to rule on the worthiness of Davis’ candidacy, the umpteenth court to be asked to do so. Geez Louise. When Tom Craddick decided to challenge the candidacy of that guy I recruited to run against him, at least he dropped it after the courts weighed in. Brimer is making a habit of this, and an unseemly habit at that. Kim, dude: Do you know how incredibly weak you look in all this? If you can beat her at the polls, beat her at the polls. If the voters in the district want you back in the Senate, they’ll put you there. Incumbents win nearly every time; that’s the system of quasi-democracy that redistricting guarantees. But if you can’t beat her at the polls and you instead beat her in advance in the courts, we’re gonna know what happened, and your consistituents are gonna know it too. Stones, Kim. Stones. Show us you have them. Drop this legal nonsense and get on with the election.

Three quick cocktail-chatter takeaways from the very interesting and, despite Jim Henson’s involvement, seemingly well-run survey released this morning by the government department at UT-Austin and the Texas Politics Project:

1. 67 percent of Texans think the country is on the wrong track. (Surely they’ll remember to mention that to GWB when they see him at the El Fenix on Mockingbird in, oh, six months.)

2. Bob Barr pulls 5 percent of the vote — all of it, presumably, from John McCain, and most of it with the unstated blessing of Ron Paul — in an otherwise unsurprising McCain-Obama November smackdown.

3. Except: Despite the supposed blood-redness of Texas and that fact that he’s running against Britney Hussein Fist Bump, McCain can’t manage to get anywhere near 50 percent.

4. Neither can John Cornyn.

5. Nearly 25 percent of Texans have no preference in the Cornyn-Noriega Senate race, which is to say: Zzzzzzzzzzz. (As for the 17 percent who have no preference in the most exciting presidential race of our lifetime, one in which the differences between the candidates could not be more pronounced: What do we have to do to get you to pay attention? Hook jumpercables up to your naughty bits?)

You may remember our list, published in February, of 35 people who will shape the future of Texas, the world, outer space, etc. One never knows how such things will turn out in the end, and that’s the nature of listicles: They’re factually accurate at the moment you publish them, whereas a moment later, not my problem. All of which is to say that I was happy to see Cat Osterman no-hit the Australians at the Olympics yesterday — and I was sorry to see Hector Montegro get drummed out of his job as Arlington’s superintendent of school’s. I guess we’re batting .500, which is more than you can say for those Aussies.

This is for those of you curious enough to wonder which of our covers sell well on the newsstands and which don’t. Yesterday I found out that our May and June issues were the major home runs we expected them to be. The Willie cover did extremely well, as all Willie covers do: a sell-through of 62 percent, well above the 50 percent or so that is our average, and more than 44,000 copies sold vs. the typical 31,000 or so. And the best barbecue joints did even better: a 67 percent sell-through and nearly 47,000 copies sold — a full 11,000 copies better an our ‘03 barbecue cover and 8,000 or so more than our ‘97 cover. We’ll close out the first six months at somewhere north of a 51 percent sell-through on average, a full 20 percentage points above the industry average.

Today my boss, Mike Levy, our founder and publisher, announced that upon his retirement on August 31, I’ll slide into a reconfigured verison of his job. My new title will be president and editor in chief, and I’ll continue (for the foreseeable future) to have purview over the editorial side of TEXAS MONTHLY — but I’ll also be responsible for running the business as a whole. I have to say that I’m honored and humbled by the whole thing, and I feel enormously lucky to be working with such an extraordinarily talented group of people. And, of course, I have nothing but affection for Mike and unending admiration and gratitude: He built a great magazine, and my job going forward, leading our team, is to preserve the legacy he leaves behind. Here’s the press release that went out today announcing the changes to come:

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Contact: Cathy Casey, TEXAS MONTHLY
ccasey@texasmonthly.com, 512.320.6980
Jodi Wright, Emmis Communications
jodi@emmis.com, 317.684.2971

EVAN SMITH NAMED PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF TEXAS MONTHLY

VETERAN EDITOR TO SUCCEED OUTGOING FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER MICHAEL R. LEVY

Austin, Texas. Emmis Publishing L.P., a wholly owned subsidiary of Emmis Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: EMMS), today announced the appointment of Evan Smith as president and editor-in-chief of TEXAS MONTHLY. In taking the helm of the magazine, Smith succeeds founder and publisher Michael R. Levy, who announced in May that he will retire on August 31. Smith assumes his new duties on September 1.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Evan is the perfect choice,” said Levy. “He will do a phenomenal job going forward, taking the magazine my colleagues and I created in 1973 and making it even stronger. The state of Texas and our phenomenal staff will be well served by Evan’s vision and leadership. The magazine is in great hands.”

“TEXAS MONTHLY has a distinguished history, one that was created and sustained by Mike Levy,” said Gary Thoe, president of Emmis Publishing. “We’re pleased that Evan will now lead into the next era what has become one of the country’s finest publications. He is the ideal steward for TEXAS MONTHLY.”

Evan Smith joined the staff of TEXAS MONTHLY as a senior editor in January 1992. In February 1993, he was promoted to deputy editor and in July 2000 was promoted to editor. In May 2002, he added the title of executive vice president of TEXAS MONTHLY. “TEXAS MONTHLY has been my home for more than 16 years, and in that time it’s been an honor to work alongside our extraordinary staff and for my great friend Mike Levy,” said Smith. “There’s no replacing Mike, but I’ll do everything I can to preserve his legacy and take the magazine he loved so much to new and loftier heights.”

During Smith’s tenure as editor, TEXAS MONTHLY has been nominated for 14 National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer prize. In April 2003, TEXAS MONTHLY was awarded the National Magazine Award for General Excellence for the third time in its history.

A graduate of Hamilton College (Clinton, New York) with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois) with a master’s degree in journalism, Smith previously held editorial positions at a number of national magazines, including The New Republic, where he was deputy editor. Since 2003, he has hosted TEXAS MONTHLY TALKS, an interview program that airs weekly on all PBS stations in Texas.

Emmis Communications - Great Media, Great People, Great Service(r)
Emmis is an Indianapolis-based diversified media firm with radio broadcasting and magazine publishing operations. Emmis Publishing includes TEXAS MONTHLY, Los Angeles Magazine, Orange Coast Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, Cincinnati Magazine, Atlanta Magazine and Country Sampler. Emmis owns 21 FM and two AM domestic radio stations serving the
nation’s largest markets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as St. Louis, Austin, Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Ind. Emmis’ Austin radio properties include KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KBPA-FM, KGSR-FM, KROX-FM and KDHT-FM. Emmis also owns a radio network, international radio stations, an interactive business and ancillary businesses in broadcast sales.

Founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, TEXAS MONTHLY has a total circulation of 300,000 and is read by more than 2.4 million people each month — one out of every eight Texas adults. Emmis Publishing purchased the magazine from Levy in 1998.

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Interesting item in the New York Observer about the New York Times policy on staffers donating to political candidates, plastering bumper stickers on their cars, etc. Craig Whitney, the paper’s standards editor, says it’s verboten:

Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of the Times. In particular, they may not campaign for, demonstrate for, or endorse candidates, ballot causes or efforts to enact legislation. They may not wear campaign buttons or themselves display any other insignia of partisan politics. They should recognize that a bumper sticker on the family car or a campaign sign on the lawn may be misread as theirs, no matter who in their household actually placed the sticker or the sign.

Staff members may not themselves give money to, or raise money for, any political candidate or election cause. Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.

For the record, as I’ve noted before, this is and has always been our policy — and my charge to our editorial and art department staffers. Even Eileen! (Will somebody buy her that *$%#! “Give me Hillary or give me debt” shirt?)

The public editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, devoted his Week in Review space to the question of why some media organizations didn’t quote Jesse Jackson’s audiotaped fantasy of Barack Obama-as-eunuch. The Times, for instance, didn’t print the word “nuts” until today, when Hoyt sought and received a waiver from the kind of people who think we’re not adult enough to handle the occasional uncouth remark in the service of actual reporting. I’m with David Remnick of The New Yorker — never a bad side to be on — who told Hoyt:

“People use these words in everyday speech. Why should we editors become so decorous and want to protect our readers from them? If a vice president uses a profanity to describe a senator, why should we sanitize his expression?”

Why indeed? In the July issue of TEXAS MONTHLY, the words “eye-fuck” and “cock holster” appear in the first section of “Soldier,” Matt Cook’s memoir of his time in the military. I didn’t think for a second that we needed to sanitize Matt’s account of basic training any more than I would have kept the words “major league asshole” from a story about George Bush’s muttered crack about then Times reporter Adam Clymer, or “Fuck yourself” from a telling of Dick Cheney’s niceties on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In the case of Matt’s story, we simply could not clean up the language of a profane drill sergeant if we meant to portray accurately his experience. In each of the last two examples, and in Reverend Jackson’s case, the cussing is germane to the presentation of the news. It is the news. We in the media should respect you out there enough to understand it.

Yes, Mr. Hoyt, the Times should have had more balls, institutionally speaking. And nuts to anyone who disagrees.

So I’m reading US Weekly online — what, I should stick to The Economist? — and here’s what I learn: Mrs. A-Rod’s divorce lawyer is none other than Earle Lilly, of Houston, the subject of an illustrated Mimi Swartz piece we published last August.

I interviewed the daughter of the late president for our August issue, which won’t be on newsstands for a couple of weeks. Here’s a sneak preview — and a choice excerpt if you’re too lazy to clink the link:

Is that how you remember him, as a larger-than-life father?

Oh, yes. I’ll tell you a story about my daughter Nicole. We got into a bit of a humorous debate, and I turned to her and said, “I would never, never have talked to my mother that way.” And she said, “I would never have talked to your mother that way either.” I use that to illustrate that I’ve enjoyed a more candid relationship with my children than with my parents. That presence, that atmosphere of accomplishment, that position of being a senator or a majority leader or a vice president or a president or a first lady, cast a shadow over my relationship with my parents.

It made it less intimate?

I don’t think it made it less intimate, but the kinds of transgressions that I’ve enjoyed with my children, where they’ll talk back or fuss or be defiant—those things would never have happened.

How easily did he persuade you to do things?

Here’s what my father did. He would say things like “I’m fifty years old. I don’t have all the answers. God is not through with me yet, Luci Baines. But my judgment says that nothing good happens on the streets past midnight, and that’s why I really am concerned about you being out then. But you’re a bright girl, and you’re a good girl, and I expect you to do the right thing. You always have. So I’m not gonna tell you what you can or cannot do because I don’t want to make our relationship adversarial. I’m just gonna tell you I have faith in you.”

Parenting by Lyndon Johnson.

If he had just told me, “You cannot,” I might have been up to defying him. But when he told me I was smart and I was good and I was thoughtful and he had faith in me—ohhh! There was no chance of me doing anything except what he wanted me to do.

You’re looking at Balmorhea — a slice of heaven on earth, or at least in West Texas — shot by the estimable Kenny Braun. It’s not number one on our list, but it’s in the top ten. Inside, pay attention to Burka’s piece on the Obama/McCain race here. Average Joes might find it a little, you know, detailed, but it’s pure smack for political junkies.

Wick Allison posted something this weekend about The Nation’s new cover story, which presumes that the Democrats have a chance of becoming the majority party in Texas again. Not entirely implausible — just way, way, way early. Interesting reading, especially for this bizarre observation about the Republicans:

[T]he party looks to be skidding toward a bloodbath in 2010, when insiders expect both Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, a hellfire-and-brimstone Christian conservative, and Senator Hutchison, who embodies the politer, Chamber of Commerce wing of the party (and says she’s tired of Washington and wants to come home), to challenge Perry in the Republican primary.

Where to begin? 1. There’s no guarantee — none at all — that the Dew will run if both Perry and Kay do. 2. The Dew is a hellfire-and-brimstone Christian conservative?????? 3. Perry isn’t running. Seriously. C’mon.