Two icons of Texas journalism converge to discuss their long careers documenting Texans both famous and ordinary. Bob Phillips is the creator of Texas Country Reporter, America’s longest-running independent TV show; his new book pulls back the curtain on fifty years of telling stories from the overlooked pockets of the Lone Star State. He’s joined by Neal Spelce, the Austin-based broadcast journalist known for his reporting in 1966 of the UT Tower shooting and who, in his twenties, found himself traveling the globe with Lyndon Johnson—the beginning of a journey that would see him bearing witness to the personal and public lives of not only LBJ but five other US presidents.

• Moderator: Mike Clark-Madison, Austin Chronicle news editor
• Format: This is a live, virtual event on CrowdCast (RSVP link above).
• Chat: Feel free to use the chat box in CrowdCast to share your thoughts and virtually cheer for and share kudos with the session’s participants! Disorderly comments will be removed immediately. Please refer to the code of conduct.
• Book(s): Click the book cover(s) below to purchase through BookPeople, Texas Book Festival’s partner bookseller. Your purchase helps support the author(s), independent bookselling, and the Texas Book Festival. Thank you.

Bob Phillips, Neal Spelce, A Good Long Drive: Fifty Years of Texas Country Reporter, With the Bark Off: A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media