Houston Press (film coverage)

John Wilburn, a former Dallas Morning News Sunday magazine editor, and Chris Hearne, former publisher of Austin's Third Coast magazine, founded the Houston Press in 1989 with money from developer Neil Morgan. Houston was then one of the few large American cities without an alternative weekly. In 1993 Morgan sold the struggling paper to New Times, the Phoenix-based chain that already owned the Dallas Observer.

Under New Times the Press grew fast. Margaret Downing became editor in chief in 1998, and by 1999 the newsroom had 23 editors and reporters. Film coverage came partly from the chain: a 1998 staff page lists Peter Rainer, Michael Sragow and Andy Klein as contributors alongside Houston writer Craig D. Lindsey, and the website had its own Film section. That shared model continued after the company became Village Voice Media. Its December 2011 film issue ran two top-ten lists, one from Houston Press film critic Pete Vonder Haar and one from chain critic Karina Longworth.

In 2012 Village Voice Media's executives bought its papers and formed Voice Media Group. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 wiped out print advertising from restaurants and arts groups. On November 3, 2017, publisher Stuart Folb told the staff that the print edition was ending and that all editorial employees except Downing were being laid off. The Press continued online with freelancers. In November 2021 Voice Media Group announced it would sell the Press to an unnamed buyer, who promised to keep it running.

Vonder Haar kept reviewing. In July 2025 his 2024 collection of Reviews For the Easily Distracted placed second for arts criticism in the Association of Alternative Newsmedia awards. The Press now describes itself as an independent daily online publication.