Ken Martin, founder, editor and publisher: Ken got interested in journalism while a career officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. After serving more than 20 years on active duty, including a tour in Vietnam, he completed his career as a major and moved to Austin in 1978 to earn a humanities degree with a minor in journalism at the University of Texas. Today Ken may be the only living journalist who has worked full-time for publications located in the three major counties of the Austin metropolitan area: Travis, Williamson and Hays. He has been a reporter and editor in the tri-county area since 1981, including associate editor of Third Coast magazine (1981-84), managing editor and janitor of the Dripping Springs Dispatch (1984-85), and county and political editor of the Williamson County Sun (1986-89). His aggressive reporting twice garnered first-place national awards for investigative reporting. Both of those projects resulted in criminal prosecutions.

In launching The Austin Bulldog, Ken returned to his roots in investigative reporting, covering both the public and private sectors. Ken was an investigative reporter for the Austin Business Journal 1989-1990 and served as editor 1990-1994, a period in which the newspaper won numerous awards for journalistic excellence. In 1995, he started the In Fact weekly newsletter covering Austin City Hall and local politics. Beginning in 1998, while still publishing In Fact, he also owned and edited Texas Public Utility News for 13 months, producing a twice-monthly newsletter covering the Texas Public Utility Commission. In 1999, Ken began publishing the In Fact newsletter five days a week, making it In Fact Daily, Austin's first online newsletter. Meanwhile, in 1997, Rebecca Melançon and Ken founded The Good Life magazine, which he edited for more than 11 years. The magazine published numerous special reports, including five in 2008 alone, before ceasing publication in January 2009 due to the economy.

See Ken's selected bibliography

Caitln Perrone, intern: Caitlin has been a practicing and published journalist since she was 16. She began her career as a news correspondent at the Times-Union in Warsaw, Indiana, covering a local town council meeting once per month. She has worked as a news reporter at The Papers Inc. and the Mail-Journal in Milford, Indiana, and at Community Impact Newspaper in Pflugerville, Texas. Caitlin, a senior majoring in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, is currently editor-in-chief of The Horn, an online alternative news source for the University of Texas and Austin news. She is enrolled in an investigative reporting class for the fall 2012 semester.

Others who have written for The Austin Bulldog

Rebecca LaFlure, reporter: Rebecca was an Austin journalist who obtained her bachelor’s in journalism at Baylor University. Originally from the Houston area, Rebecca began her journalism career as an education reporter for the Killeen Daily Herald, outside Fort Hood, one of the largest military bases in the world. She moved to Austin in June 2010, and covered Round Rock and Pflugerville city government, education and business news for Community Impact Newspaper until September 2011. Her thirst for investigative journalism brought her to The Austin Bulldog. Rebecca produced numerous projects based on deep background research from October 2011 through July 2012 before departing for graduate school at Northwestern University (Chicago) majoring in journalism.

Rebecca has earned state and national recognition for her reporting, including a first-place state award for coverage of a vigil honoring victims of the November 5, 2009, mass shooting at Fort Hood and a second-place national award for a report on the Round Rock school district’s efforts to close the achievement gap between minority and low-income students and their white and wealthier classmates.  

Roger Baker started in high school about 1960 by supporting integration, and later by opposing the Vietnam war as a campus activist. He dropped out of UT to hang out and became a sort of marginal existence of slacker and policy wonk, published amateur scientist, and scholarly reformer. He frequently writes for The Rag Blog on topics centered on science, economics, energy and transportation and elsewhere, such as Energy Bulletin. He is a founding and advisory member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA. Locally he is on the boards of the Save our Springs Alliance and the Save Barton Creek Association. He is a card carrying member of the ACLU and Travis County Green Party.

Suzanne Batchelor is an independent writer and editor based in Austin who has reported for Ms. magazine, The Texas Observer, Wired.com, Medscape, CBS Healthwatch, WebMD, and the Women’s eNews news service. Her radio programs have been broadcast on the public-radio science series “Earth and Sky.”

Jacob Cottingham grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and graduated Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He was the publisher of Savannah SNITCH and the founding editor of The South magazine.

Since 2007 he has lived in Austin, Texas and has covered local government and environmental issues for In Fact Daily and The Austin Chronicle.

Veteran journalist Gwen Gibson worked as a general assignment reporter in her early career for UPI, The New York Daily News and the New York Herald Tribune, covering everything from police beats to the White House. In more recent years, Gibson has freelanced for other national newspapers and magazines, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, New York magazine, the Washingtonian  and the AARP Magazine and website.

Her specialties over the years have included national and local politics as well as arts and entertainment and humor pieces.  Since moving to Austin from Washington, D.C., in 2006, she has contributed regularly to local and national magazines. 

Gibson is the author of three books and a member of ASCAP.

George “Trey” Hatt is a graduate student at Texas State University-San Marcos studying mass communication with a new media emphasis. He is the former community editor of the Llano County Journal where he covered everything from football games to murder trials, commissioners court to the U.S. Supreme Court.  He won awards from the Texas Press Association and West Texas Press Association for his writing and editing.

Trey also saw combat as a command gunner in Iraq in 2005 with the Texas Army National Guard and served in Bosnia in 1999 with the U.S. Army. Trey can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . His online portfolio can be seen at www.georgehatt.com.

Greg M. Schwartz holds a master's degree in journalism and mass communication from Kent State University. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Greg spent most of his adult life in San Francisco and Los Angeles before departing the Golden State in the fall of 2008 for a reporting opportunity in the Lone Star State as a staff writer for the San Antonio Current. San Antone and Greg did not agree however, and he relocated to Austin in September 2009.

Greg has reported for the Cleveland Free Times, Akron Beacon Journal, East Bay Express, KPFA Evening News and more. He is also a freelance music writer for PopMatters.com and Bullz-Eye.com.

Shelley Seale is an author and freelance journalist in Austin, who writes frequently about human rights issues. Her 2009 book, The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, tells the story of many children of that country who have been trafficked, orphaned or live on the streets. Shelley has also written for CNN, National Geographic, the Austin Business Journal and the Seattle Times, among others.

She can be reached at www.shelleyseale.com.