T-Squared: Poll Position

Gee, do you think the launch of the UT/Texas Tribune poll had anything to do with the decision of the state's five largest newspapers to enter into an unprecedented collaboration on polling of their own? Seriously, this is very good news for Texas — for anyone who wants to have an independent measure of public opinion on issues of the day and races on the ballot. The economics of polling have made it difficult in the current economic climate for individual papers to step out on their own and poll the state, but joining forces and sharing costs makes the impossible possible. Whatever the reason, we applaud the five entities for throwing in together, as they've begun to do in other content-share arrangements. As we've said repeatedly, this is the brave new media world: We can either survive together, in strategic partnership, or hang separately.