Evan Smith's Profile Photo

Evan Smith is a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, for which he advises nonprofit local news orgs around the country. He’s also a senior adviser at the Texas Tribune, the pioneering nonprofit digital news organization he cofounded in 2009 and led for more than thirteen years as CEO; a Distinguished Fellow in Journalism at the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy; and a contributing writer at the Atlantic. Previously he spent eighteen years at Texas Monthly, including nine years as the magazine’s editor in chief and a year as its president. Evan is the host of Overheard with Evan Smith, a weekly half-hour interview program that airs on PBS stations around the country. A native of New York, he's a graduate of Hamilton College, which awarded him an honorary degree in 2023, and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, which inducted him into its Hall of Achievement in 2006.

242 Articles

Sports|
March 1, 1998

Team Player

Red McCombs, still on the sidelines

Film & TV|
January 1, 1998

The D-Files

Signs of intelligent life in Dallas.

Politics & Policy|
November 1, 1997

Mooned

A Houston congresswoman’s space case.

Books|
September 30, 1997

Burning Bridges

For Robert James Waller, life imitates art—and irritates wife.

Film & TV|
July 31, 1997

The Latest Buzz

Why everyone’s dazed and confused about Richard Linklater’s age.

Books|
June 30, 1997

Affair of State

A Dallas lawyer’s roman à Clinton.

Music|
May 31, 1997

Satisfaction

That’s what Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall got on their recent trip to West Texas. West Texas retailers got it too.

Books|
April 30, 1997

Ghost Story

If you’re a celebrity who wants to pen a book, who you gonna call? Ghostwriters.

Business|
April 1, 1997

Not Much Left

The Texas Observer could be on its last legs (again).

Film & TV|
March 1, 1997

’Saw Loser

Why a great horror movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger could get buried.

Film & TV|
February 1, 1997

Tex Rated

summary: What’s the best hotel in Texas? (Hint: It’s not the Mansion on Turtle Creek).

Books|
January 1, 1997

Lars Attacks!

Why Texas’ best-known homeless writer is back on the streets.

Guides|
December 1, 1996

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDsAlong with Nat “King” Cole, Texas City native Charles Brown became the father of late-night “cocktail blues” in Los Angeles in the forties. Half a century later, Honey Dripper (Verve/Gitanes) vividly conjures up Brown’s suave, stylish world. His voice is sweet and smoky like a rich cigar and as

Art|
November 1, 1996

Stella Houston

The University of Houston thinks Frank Stella is frankly stellar.

Guides|
November 1, 1996

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDsTwo years after their wildly successful debut, Elida y Avante bounce back from label troubles with Algo Entero (Tejas). For my money, Mercedes-born Elida Reyna is tejano’s next female superstar. Her husky, throbbing voice is mature well beyond her 24 years—she has the archetypal blend of innocence and experience—and

The Stand Up Desk|
September 30, 1996

Paul In The Family

Anyone who knows executive editor Paul Burka would have a hard time imagining him as a cowboy, so perhaps it seems farfetched that he was the one to write this month’s story about the plight of a small working ranch in Uvalde (“Home on the Range”). “I’m a

Media|
July 31, 1996

Spiel Burg

A Spielberg-backed cyberguide comes to Texas.

The Stand Up Desk|
July 31, 1996

Seeing Stars

In the summer of 1992, when Jason Cohen was a relatively unknown journalist and Matthew McConaughey was an extremely unknown actor, the two met on the Austin set of Dazed and Confused. “He looked so weird,” recalls 28-year-old Cohen, who was writing about the movie for Details. “He had

Film & TV|
June 30, 1996

Her Little Secret

Those whispers about Melissa Etheridge are true: She will play Port Arthur–born Janis Joplin in a forthcoming feature film. Director Mark Rocco (Murder in the First) has secured the rights to Myra Friedman’s 1973 Joplin bio, Buried Alive, and the rights to Joplin’s songs, and he’s talking to Etheridge’s label,

The Stand Up Desk|
June 30, 1996

Skip, a Beat

JUST AS HE WAS FINISHING up “Poisoning Daddy”, his tale of a Fort Worth teenager who killed her father, senior editor Skip Hollandsworth set out to interview the sibling models featured on this month’s Face page. As it happened, one of the sisters, Wende Parks, had been

The Stand Up Desk|
May 31, 1996

Swartz and All

We didn’t know it at the time, but there was something karmically appropriate about asking senior editor Mimi Swartz to write about riding around the state with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Victor Morales in his dented white pickup truck (see “Truckin’,”). At first, it seemed to make sense

Sports|
March 1, 1996

Shoot a Basketball

With high school basketball playoffs just around the bend, our thoughts turned to the mechanics of the game—and so we called head boys coach Robert Hughes of Dunbar High School in Fort Worth, whose lifetime record of 1,082-192 makes him the fourth-winningest coach in the country. A two-time All-American at

Energy|
February 1, 1996

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

It’s not enough to say that associate editor Helen Thorpe was a fish out of water while reporting her story on the new oil plays in the Gulf of Mexico (“Oil and Water,”). She was really a fish out of water on the water. Three different times, the

Sports|
January 1, 1996

Powers Boothe

I played a few sports at Snyder High School, but my big thing was football. I played quarterback and defensive back until my senior year, when I quit to start acting in plays. You know what a big deal high school football is: When I quit, some of the coaches

Low Talk|
December 1, 1995

Low Talk

Where Microsft wants to go today.

Low Talk|
November 1, 1995

Low Talk

Ross Perot defends his wife.

Low Talk|
September 30, 1995

Low Talk

Anne Richards Stages a comeback.

Reporter|
September 30, 1994

All Fired Up

A ban against hunting dogs is turning some East Texas hunters into backwoods pyros.

Reporter|
June 30, 1994

Starting Over

The University of Texas at Dallas gets a new president—and a healthy does of controversy.

Media|
December 1, 1993

The Watchdog

Forget how she looks. For fifty years, Tyler’s Sarah McClendon has been the most vigilant White House correspondent.

Music|
September 1, 1993

The Comeback Kink

After ten low-key years, country singer turned mystery novelist Kinky Friedman is once again poised to hit the big time.

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