Support Watchtower
Independent journalism, no-cost municipal consulting, governance training, recovery work, and civil rights reporting for Texas local government. 100% reader-funded. Cities pay nothing.
How to Help.
Contributions underwrite the full scope of Watchtower’s work: public records requests, document analysis, interviews, on-the-ground reporting, municipal consulting, governance training, recovery work, travel between communities, business and legal expenses, and the infrastructure that keeps everything running. Watchtower operates without paywalls, advertisers, or corporate sponsorship and is fully reader-funded.
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By the Numbers
Why Your Support Matters
Watchtower’s work spans independent investigative journalism, municipal compliance consulting, financial oversight, governance training, municipal recovery, whistleblower investigations, civil rights reporting, and forum moderation. Every part of this is resource-intensive: filing public records requests, attending public meetings, traveling between communities, analyzing contracts, building investigations from primary-source documentation, engaging counsel on business and legal matters, and sustaining the operating infrastructure a statewide effort requires.
Every service Watchtower offers to Texas cities, counties, and special districts is provided free of charge. We take no money from the local governments we cover or consult with, no advertising, and no corporate sponsorship. Reader contributions are the only way this work happens.
Every dollar contributed keeps cities from having to pay for the oversight their residents already paid for once through taxes, and keeps our reporting and consulting independent of the bodies it covers.
Ways to Support
One-Time Contribution
A single contribution in any amount. Funds are applied directly to public records request fees, document analysis, interview and consulting travel, on-the-ground reporting, business and legal expenses, and the publication of Watchtower’s work.
ContributeMonthly Support
Recurring monthly contributions provide predictable operating funding. Sustained support enables long-range investigative planning, multi-month consulting and recovery engagements with specific cities, timely processing of public records requests, and the legal and business infrastructure that holds the operation together.
Subscribe MonthlyRecent Reporting Your Support Makes Possible
These are the investigations readers like you have funded. Every story started with a public records request.
Who Runs Hawk Cove? Not the Council, According to the Council
Hawk Cove has an agenda item called Public Comments that nobody was allowed to comment on, a federal lender its own attorney says is done being patient, and a council whose members say on the record that they do not know what their own city is doing.
A Town of 1,400 Is Suddenly Moving Millions
Tens of millions are moving through Hubbard, Texas, a town of 1,400: data-center money into city government, a $7.6 million school bond, and municipal borrowing, with one man near the top of it all.
Freedom at 250: The People I Have Met Who Were Arrested for Showing Up
One year after bonding out of jail on the Fourth of July, I look back at the Texans I have met who were arrested for showing up, and ask a hard question on America's 250th birthday.
The Mayor Warned About 'These People.' So We Called Him.
A Gun Barrel City clip has more than 244,000 views and a comment section at war. The next morning, I called the mayor in it. He talked for 55 minutes.
Where Your Money Goes
- Public records requests -- filing fees, copying costs, and labor charges assessed by government bodies under the Texas Public Information Act
- Document analysis -- tools and time spent reviewing contracts, financial records, meeting minutes, audits, and public filings across every service line
- Interviews and source work -- speaking with community members, public officials, witnesses, whistleblowers, and subject-matter experts to build complete, accurate accounts of what happened and why
- On-the-ground work -- attending city council meetings, conducting consulting visits, moderating forums, documenting conditions in covered communities, and being physically present where the work is
- Travel -- vehicle expenses, fuel, and overnight stays in the cities, counties, and special districts Watchtower covers, consults with, and serves across Texas
- Business and legal expenses -- business attorney fees, entity and regulatory compliance, pre-publication review, insurance, and counsel engaged to defend the right to report on public bodies
- Infrastructure -- website hosting, email hosting, secure document storage, a dedicated phone line, and the communication tools we rely on to coordinate with sources, officials, and the public
Watchtower is a private company. Payments are not tax-deductible charitable contributions. Your support is a payment to a private entity in exchange for sustaining independent journalism operations. Payments are processed securely by Stripe.