On this episode of the Plutopia podcast, veteran journalist and author Chris Tomlinson joins us to unpack his reporting on the July 4th floods in Central Texas — why they were predictable and preventable — and to warn that American democracy is being endangered by aggressive redistricting and other election-rigging tactics. Now a columnist on money, politics, and life in Texas for the Houston Chronicle and Hearst newspapers, Tomlinson — author of Tomlinson Hill and co-author of Forget the Alamo — also talks about accountability journalism, Texas’s evolving disaster-response model versus FEMA, H-E-B’s disaster brand, the precarious economics of local news, and the threats reporters face in today’s polarized climate. It’s a sobering, timely conversation about policy failures, history Texans still aren’t taught, and what it will take to keep both journalism and democracy alive.
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Chris Tomlinson:
We are in dangerous times. And I feel like I rub my bosses the wrong way when I keep trying to make this point — that we are in far more perilous times than most Americans realize. As soon as I get off with you, I’m going to file my column about redistricting that will be online tomorrow. You know, this is fundamental democracy stuff going on now. And if we keep losing journalism and we keep losing independence and we keep allowing the election elections to be rigged through how we draw the political maps — then we’re in serious trouble.
Links:
Chris’s page at the Houston Chronicle:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/author/chris-tomlinson/
July 2025 Central Texas floods
Jessie Singer, There Are No Accidents
Wendy’s review: https://www.pelicancrossing.net/netwars/2022/04/grounded.html
H-E-B Grocery: https://heb.com
New York Times Pitchbot:
@nytpitchbot.bsky.social