Scott Braddock, the editor of the go-to source for Texas political insiders, Harvey Kronberg's The Quorum Report, has launched a new podcast called “Quorum Report Radio” (now available on all platforms).
For the past decade, Braddock hosted the state’s top-ranked politics podcast, the "Texas Take." As an avid listener of that show, I feel Braddock really taught me about what is happening in Austin and how the Texas Capitol works. Information that I ended up using personally.
And I am happy to say that, with “Quorum Report Radio,” Braddock is back with the insider information that really gets behind the day's Texas political news.
A native of Wharton County, Braddock grew up on a farm before launching his radio career at age 16 in Brenham, where he spun records and read school lunch menus on the air. By 19, he was covering news in Bryan–College Station, and he hasn’t looked back since.
Braddock previously served as chief political reporter for 740 KTRH in Houston and NewsRadio 1080 KRLD in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Throughout his career, Braddock has earned prestigious honors, including Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press awards for investigative journalism. He has also been recognized by the Texas congressional delegation for excellence and fairness in political reporting and is a frequent guest on national and statewide media outlets, including Fox News Channel, CNN, CBS News, ABC News, and conservative talk radio programs across Texas.
Braddock was kind enough to answer my questions about the new “Quorum Report Radio” podcast and much more.
Mike McGuff: You’ve promised to give listeners the "inside scoop" on the halls of power. Will the Quorum Report Radio Podcast allow you to be more candid or opinionated than you were under the Houston Chronicle banner?
Scott Braddock: Yes, sir.
There's no question the new show gives listeners a more unvarnished version of Quorum Report’s storytelling, analysis, and news coverage. My Publisher and mentor, Harvey Kronberg, and I have been deliberate in pulling no punches in covering Texas politics because fairness is born of accuracy, not the “bothsidesism” false equivalence you get from most traditional media.
The new show skips right past that and instead prioritizes what political professionals want to hear about. It’s really an audio version of the kind of reporting we’ve been doing in the pages of Quorum Report for decades.
One of our listeners said, “It just feels more authentic” than the old show. That probably speaks to how it’s more tailored to what the Texas Capitol crowd wants to hear, which just happens to be the stuff I really care about. For example, this past week’s show features an in-depth discussion with Harvey about how this year’s elections could complicate Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ chances for reelection as speaker.
We’re already thinking about that because our audience demands that kind of info. Another recent episode starts with the story under the story of what’s happening in the GOP primary for Texas Comptroller in which one candidate purchased Jeffrey Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico. And I traveled across Deep East Texas to cover a state Senate race that may not be the sexiest thing going on – like the US Senate race – but it’s critical for players at the Capitol in Austin. Of course, we’re covering the US Senate race because of increased focus on the top of the ticket this year. But we’re also connecting the dots on how that race may impact the structure of Texas government come 2027.
On Quorum Report Radio, we can really spread out and talk at length about those topics thanks to how we source our information and the way we primarily serve an audience of political professionals. But one thing I’ve already noticed in just the first few months of doing this new program is that there’s also a broader audience interested in what the insiders are talking about. So, it’s pretty accessible to any political junkie.
All that said, the partnership with the Houston Chronicle over the last decade has been nothing but positive. I wouldn’t have gotten into podcasting without them, after all. Until they asked me to create a Texas politics podcast out of thin air, it had never even entered my mind to do something like that. In a lot of ways, I thought my days behind the microphone were behind me after I was fired from a radio station in spectacular fashion in Houston nearly 15 years ago.
But what's the old line? "Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in."
Podcasting is great because, in so many ways, it is just like radio was in its infancy: You can do anything you want with it. A comedy show? Cool. A show about your favorite music? Sure. A show about Texas politics? You bet. A Texas politics show that starts each episode with an original track from a rap artist in Houston? Yes, we do that now.
MM: Take us back to 2015: When the Houston Chronicle first approached you about launching a Texas politics podcast, did you have any sense it would become such a long-term, defining project?
SB: Absolutely not.
When the Chronicle’s then-Austin Bureau Chief Mike Ward first approached me about it, I thought I would just help them get it started, and after a few weeks, they’d figure out how to do it on their own, and I’d move on. But a few months into the project, it became clear they had no idea how to keep this thing going. Only then did I negotiate an agreement to be compensated by the Chronicle for it and made the commitment to do the show each week.
In the background, what had happened was the Chronicle's owners at Hearst Newspapers told them to do more with multimedia, including podcasts. So, the newspaper approached me because of my decades in broadcasting and asked me to collaborate on what I now just call the old show. My last co-host, Jeremy Wallace, is a great newspaper reporter. Over the years, I had several co-hosts, and they all did a solid job. But I had to teach them to do a version of a radio show. Through multiple co-hosts and producers, I was the only constant presence because of my dedication to the audience we were cultivating.
Last year, though, I made the decision to put a laser focus on the products we're creating at Quorum Report to always serve our audience first through our writing, podcasting, radio, and TV appearances as well as speeches around Texas. Some other changes are coming, too. I’ll unveil some of that later this year.
But there’s no animosity between Quorum Report and the Chronicle. I have many friends who work at Hearst newspapers across Texas. Just a couple weeks ago, in fact, the Chronicle’s Opinion Editor Evan Mintz was on the new show with me to talk about the paper’s endorsement of James Talarico in the Democratic primary for US Senate.
But you’re right: The old show became one of the primary things I’m known for in Texas generally and at the Texas Capitol specifically. I like the fact that political professionals would really listen to the show each week and not just say things like “hey, great show!” Instead, they’d sometimes want to argue about what had been said or – as is often the case with a sophisticated audience – they’d offer some perspective on an issue that I hadn’t yet known about or considered. The day I stop learning from my audience is the day I’ll stop doing all this for a living.
MM: Texas Take became the number one politics podcast in Texas. What do you think listeners connected with most: tone, access, trust, or something else?
SB: That’s a great question. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it’s probably because people feel like they really know me. That’s based on listener feedback. When listeners approach me at various events around the state, they’ll very often say something like “hey, I feel like I just talked to you.” What they mean is they listened to the show.
And the thing is, they do know me because I’m a pretty open book.
Radio industry folks will readily tell you that radio – and now podcasting as well – is the most intimate medium. When I was a 16-year-old disc jockey, the owner of the station where I worked in Brenham, Texas, gave me some of the best advice any young broadcaster can get: When you talk into the microphone, imagine you’re talking to one person driving in their car, doing chores around the house, or whatever. Don’t treat your presentation like you’re talking to a big crowd. People don’t listen that way. They listen solo, generally. Although I know some people do listen with their kids in the car. So, I still give a warning if there’s going to be rough language or something difficult to listen to, like the audio of the screaming of the children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde when their classmates were murdered.
The fact that people usually listen solo is even more pronounced now that most of them use earbuds. The experience is just them and who they’re listening to. One listener said something about how “It feels like a conversation where there’s no pressure on me to say anything.” I think that’s a cool way to think about it.
MM: The phrase “the story under the story” comes up often in how you describe your work. How does audio allow you to tell that story differently from print?
SB: That phrase was really drilled into me by Mr. Kronberg, who’s been looking for that “story under the story” of Texas politics and government for about 40 years now. It’s always changing.
There’s a lot we do at Quorum Report that’s unique in Texas. Chief among those things is that in our publication and now on the podcast, we don’t necessarily do a lot of on-the-record interviews because our audience is hoping to learn the things they can’t get from an on-the-record conversation. Candidates, officeholders, advocates, and others always have their focus-grouped talking points ready to go, and that’s fine. But when a source says, “Can I tell you something off the record?” that means we’re about to get to the heart of what’s really going on.
That’s the good stuff.
What’s the real motivation and the real end game? These things are always moving targets. So, covering those stories in real time across print, the podcast, and on social media is key to figuring out what’s happening in fluid situations. I’m always down to get dinner, have drinks, or smoke cigars with political combatants and have those off-the-record conversations because that’s when they really open up and give more of the full story. When their name doesn’t have to be attached to the information, you get a fuller understanding of the situation. What’s the standard for reporting information without attribution? Well, that’s more art than science.
On the show, we can play the audio of what officeholders or others said on the record. But then I can get real with the audience and give some genuine context to what was said. For most of the other politics shows, it seems like the only way hosts know how to do it is to have guests on to fill time. I don’t do that. Could I have Beto O’Rourke or Ted Cruz on the show for an hour to say whatever they want? Sure. We have fun on the show but I’m always going to respect the listener’s time by avoiding even a minute of spin from a guest and instead get right to the heart of what’s going on. That doesn’t mean we’ll never have guests. But I maintain a high bar for what’s going to be interesting to hear from a guest.
A lot of listeners tell me their ritual has been to pour a drink or smoke “something” on Friday nights and turn on the podcast. That was true with the old show and now with the new one.
I’m often asked by journalism students and others, “What are you most proud of in your career?” I used to have a hard time answering that. Not anymore. It’s the audience. I’m most proud of the fact that I have a smart audience and sources who trust me on both ends of an information exchange that both find beneficial.
MM: You’ve covered generations of Texas political power players. How do today’s lawmakers and operatives differ in how they engage with media compared to earlier eras?
SB: Previous generations in Texas’ top leadership were much more open with the press. Mr. Kronberg often talks, though, about how Democratic Gov. Ann Richards and GOP Gov. Rick Perry were both hostile to Quorum Report at different times for different reasons. The late Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, used to say something like “in order to abuse power, you have to have it in the first place.” He was a prosecutor, of course, and prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans because Democrats were in charge longer.
As journalists, a key responsibility is to keep folks honest when they hold the keys of power.
Does Quorum Report do it a little differently from the way newspapers or TV reporters do? Sure.
Top Republican leadership in Texas has become more hostile to the press than I’ve ever seen in covering politics for a quarter-century. And it’s not just that they’ll lie to you or not answer questions at all. That’s always been part of the mix.
But in previous generations, politicians would tell a lie and hope they didn’t get caught at it. Now they’ll know that you know that what they’re saying isn’t true, and they still do it anyway. It seems like in politics and across our culture, everyone feels less personal responsibility to each other. That’s unfortunate. But we’d be lazy in our jobs as journalists if we just accept that as being okay.
MM: No doubt you have a lot of interesting stories over your years of covering Texas politics. What is one of your favorites that you enjoy telling at the cigar bar?
SB: You’ll hate this answer but I’m probably not going to be able to think of one. It might be a little like asking a Swiftie to pick a favorite song by Taylor. For one, there are too many hits and the ones I’d call my favorites are always changing.
It might surprise you but when I’m at a cigar bar – or anywhere really – I’m mainly listening instead of talking because I’m constantly gathering information and taking the time to hear what everyone has to say. When I was in my 20s, I’d spend so much time trying to be right when making my arguments about all this. Now that I’ll be pushing 50 soon, I’ve figured out there’s a lot of delight in finding out I was completely wrong about something.
