Peter Bhatia – Media Nation

Peter Bhatia tells us about the Houston Landing — including the turmoil at the top

On the new “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Peter Bhatia. Bhatia is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor who is now chief executive officer of the Houston Landing, a nonprofit, non-partisan, no-paywall local news site that launched in spring of 2023. He has also been editor and vice president at the Detroit Free Press, from 2017-2023, and served as a regional editor for Gannett, supervising newsrooms in Michigan and Ohio.

His résumé includes helping lead newsrooms that won 10 Pulitzer Prizes. He is the first journalist of South Asian heritage to lead a major daily newspaper in the U.S. He has also been involved in some recent controversies, and, as you’ll hear, he doesn’t shy away from talking about them.

In Quick Takes, I talk about an important press-freedom case in Mississippi. The former governor, Phil Bryant, is suing Mississippi Today over its Pulitzer Prize-winning series on a state welfare scandal that got national attention and even managed to touch former NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Bryant says he needs access to Today’s internal documents in order to prove his libel case, and a state judge has agreed. Mississippi Today has decided to take the case to the state Supreme Court. It’s a risk, because it will set a precedent in the Magnolia State — for better or worse.

Ellen highlights an interview with Alicia Bell, the director of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. Bell talked to Editor & Publisher about her upcoming report on what it will take to build a thriving local news ecosystem for BIPOC communities across the country. Her estimate: it will take somewhere between $380 million to $7.1 billion annually to truly fund BIPOC journalism across the U.S. That’s a big number, but Borealis is a pioneer in this space, and it’s important research as national efforts like Press Forward roll out.

You can listen to our conversation here and subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

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At Houston Landing, the firings will continue until morale improves

Houston Landing, a high-profile nonprofit digital startup that has been beset by turmoil for much of 2024, is at it again. John Tedesco, a top editor at the Landing, was fired Wednesday, according to the Houston Landing NewsGuild, which, on Twitter/X, called it “another senseless decision that comes after nearly two months of disorganization.”

It was two months ago that a new editor-in-chief, Manny García, and a new managing editor, Angel Rodriguez, arrived. But according to the union, the new executive team has been virtually silent, adding, “We haven’t been given any clear direction.” As for Tedesco, the union has this to say: “Tedesco wasn’t an eligible union member, but he embodies everything we fight for: empathy, kindness, and firmness. We wouldn’t be here without him. Houston Landing wouldn’t be here without him.”

What a mess. In January, editor-in-chief Mizanur Rahman and top investigative reporter Alex Stuckey were fired by CEO Peter Bhatia, who — according to a memorable Washington Post article (free link) — responded with a classic “Do you know who I am?” when he was challenged on his plan to have the business and editorial operations work together more closely. (In fairness, Bhatia is a legendary journalist in his own right. But also in fairness, there’s a reason that keeping editorial and business apart is sometimes referred to as “the separation of church and state.”)

At the time that Rahman and Stuckey were fired, Tedesco said on Twitter that he told Bhatia he disagreed with the decision. Bhatia, in turn, pledged to keep Tedesco, and perhaps move him to a different position if the new editor didn’t want him as his deputy.

That different position turned out to be out the door.

As Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton tweeted: “They’ll teach a case study about @Hou_Landing management someday, and it will not be a positive case.”

Houston Landing, founded in 2023, received $20 million in grants from the likes of the Knight Foundation and the American Journalism Project, as well as wealthy locals. As smaller news startups express frustration over being snubbed by Big Philanthropy, the Landing stands out as a large, well-funded site whose good work is being undermined and overshadowed by some mighty strange management moves at the top.

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‘Do you know who I am?’ The Washington Post on the turmoil at Houston Landing

It’s still not clear why the editor of the nonprofit Houston Landing and its top investigative reporter were fired this past week. But Will Sommer of The Washington Post (free link) has quite an anecdote about CEO Peter Bhatia’s reaction when he was challenged about his decision to start attending news meetings, which would violate the traditional wall between editorial and business operations: “Do you know who I am? Seriously, do you know who I am? I’ve been a journalist for 50 years, I have 10 Pulitzer Prizes, I’ve been editor of a half a dozen newspapers.”

Sommer and Sophie Culpepper, in her earlier (and more thorough) Nieman Lab report, write that Bhatia’s main complaint about editor Mizanur Rahman was his belief that he didn’t take advantage of digital tools as much as he should have. Reporter Alex Stuckey may have been collateral damage, fired pre-emptively because of her outspokenness and her loyalty to Rahman.

None of it makes any sense because the Landing, by all accounts, is off to a good start, publishing excellent journalism and in decent shape financially thanks to lavish philanthropic support.

One quibble about Sommer’s story. He writes:

The sudden turmoil at Houston Landing — a seven-month-old news site backed with a hefty $20 million in foundation funding — is raising questions about whether the scores of nonprofit outlets attempting to save journalism in communities across the country will end up mired in the same woes as their languishing corporate rivals, from muddled transitions to digital formats to executive decisions that often come without a clear rationale.

I don’t understand that framing. What’s unfolding at Houston Landing is a reflection of the human condition and how that plays out at organizations. There are good leaders and bad, inspired and mediocre, mensches and jerks. Do recent drastic cuts at The Washington Post, for instance, “raise questions” about what happens to a great newspaper when its billionaire owner starts to lose interest?

There is nothing about the current mess at Houston Landing that says anything about nonprofit news. It’s just one of those things, and it’s ugly.

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