Since opening TOMO Mags, a magazine shop that started as a traveling bus, in December, owner Vico Tadeo Puentes noticed a trend: Customers loved the store’s issues on culture, art, and fashion, but they weren’t interested in the news. Interior design magazines sold out. The Economist collected dust.
“It just begs the question,” Puentes recently told the Chronicle, “How are people reading the news?”
Through conversations with customers, he discovered that many people weren’t. Overwhelmed with a flood of information, readers tuned out. Data backs those observations. A study from the Pew-Knight Initiative published earlier this year found that six in 10 Americans have reduced their news intake, with more than half of Americans feeling “worn out” by the news.
Through a new group called the News Reading Club, Puentes wants to get people to read news again – and enjoy it. That mission has resonated, drawing dozens of community members to the first meeting on Sept. 19. Journalists, teachers, designers, students, and others wanting to reestablish their relationship with modern news met at a lounge inside the Thompson Austin, ready to discuss the latest scoop. For many, the event was an opportunity to engage not only with current events, but also civic life.
“Democracy is calling me,” writer Kathryn Brouillette said, smiling.
Rebuilding Trust
The club stemmed from a series of conversations between Puentes and Sally Lehrman, an award-winning journalist who serves as the founder and CEO of the Trust Project, a conglomeration of news outlets focused on rebuilding the public’s faith in news. At a South by Southwest event at Puentes’ magazine hub, the pair clicked and designed the News Reading Club as a partnership between TOMO Mags and the Trust Project shortly after.
The Trust Project requires its partner outlets to use eight “trust indicators” to uphold and signal integrity. For example, Trust Project partners label what they publish to help readers better distinguish hard news from opinion, analysis, and advertising content.
Ahead of the club’s kickoff, Lehrman led a workshop to help civic and community leaders design tangible ways to disseminate those principles in their professional environments.
“We’ll start with your own personal news journey,” Lehrman told the small crowd. The participants represented diverse worlds, from banks to nonprofits to newsrooms. They voiced similar grievances about AI slop, disinformation, and algorithms. But instead of ignoring the news, most were keyed in, and described reading, listening to, and watching reputable sources daily.
“I’m pretty discerning,” said Janis Daemmrich, who runs Daemmrich Photography with her husband. “I’ve turned down or eliminated a lot of slop.”
As participants jotted down and shared ideas, Lehrman and TOMO staff member Soloman Meza doled out energy bars, water bottles, and pamphlets, as an occasional flash of Meza’s film camera captured the scene. In small groups, participants designed projects to draw passive consumers back to hard news. One group proposed sampling short articles at grocery stores, as a food vendor offers slices of cheese. Daemmrich suggested a drinking game.
As participants shared strategies to stay informed and help others do the same, Daniel Ronan, who owns English-language bookstore Under the Volcano Books in Mexico City, said policymakers should be lending a hand in the space.
“We should be putting the onus of that on the market,” Ronan said. “But we are taking this on.”
Lehrman welcomed Ronan’s take while emphasizing the imperative to find intentional ways to consume news amidst a torrent of content.
Wrapping Back Around
Two days later, the News Reading Club took aim at that balance. Before the first meeting, Puentes and Lehrman shared a list of articles about the inaugural topic, “information.” The articles addressed AI and the importance of reading, among other topics. Not everyone did the homework, but most had plenty to say. As participants broke into small groups for discussion, Puentes had one plea: respect each other.
“We decided that instead of adding to the venting and the ranting, that we’re going to try to find solutions together,” Puentes told the crowd of 60. “You’re part of that solution.”
For over two hours, participants voiced opinions and questions about news, how we consume it, and how it’s changing. AI was a central topic of discussion, with many people wary of its capacity to replace human content. The room, abuzz with takes, was not the echo chamber Puentes feared.
“We all had different perspectives, but they’re pretty badass in their own right,” said Dante Clemons, co-founder of Origin Studio House, a coffee shop and creative space designed to support Black residents in Austin.
That open-minded attitude is central to Puentes’ hopes for the new program. At a recent interview inside TOMO Mags, he emphasized the need to forge human connections in a world increasingly mediated by technology – connections based on truth, not shared opinions.
“The goal is, how do you and I, together, get closer to the most factual version of what we’re discussing?”
Readers can join in on that goal for free at the club’s next meeting on Oct. 31 at the Thompson Austin.
This article appears in September 25 • 2026.
