T-Squared: Houston, We Have a Partner

One of the theoretical tentpoles of the Trib's mission is free syndication: We mean for as many newspapers and for-profit and non-profit broadcast outlets as are inclined to run our text, audio, video, etc. in their pages, on air, and on their web sites. The reason, as I've said countless times, is that the road to success as we define it is paved with ubiquity; the more people who access our content, the better the chance for greater engagement by Texans on the big issues that matter to all of us.

To date, we've encountered some resistance from the biggest potential "clients" of the syndicate: the major dailies around the state, which have their own reporters covering public policy and politics and therefore can't understand why we think there are gaps in coverage to be filled. But this afternoon, as Woody Allen might say, we achieved total heaviosity. Rick Dunnam, the able and forward-thinking Houston Chronicle reporter who writes the paper's Texas on the Potomac blog, reprinted, in its entirety, Reeve Hamilton's profile of wannabe pundit Matt Mackowiak, which ran in the Tribune on Friday. Thanks, Rick, and thanks, Jeff (that would be Cohen, the Chron's editor), for seeing the value in what we do and the merits of providing a home for our best stuff. May it be only the first instance -- and may other papers follow your lead.