In 2005 he won the newsroom’s Jimmy Davy Award, which recognized the newsroom’s most valuable player. Later he worked as an on-air investigative reporter for WKRN-Channel 2 in Nashville, where he broke news about legislators’ conflicts of interest. From 2005 to 2007 Seibert worked as a political reporter for The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville. Trent Seibert founded and served as the editor of the Texas Watchdog. Texas Watchdog stated that its mission was to seek open government at all levels, and to arm citizen-journalists with journalistic tools to keep their city halls honest. Texas Watchdog was launched in August 2008 by journalist Trent Seibert. The organization advocated for greater transparency in government, and sought to aid bloggers and citizen journalists in gaining access to public meetings and records. It ceased operations in 2013 when it lost funding. Texas Watchdog was a nonprofit, nonpartisan news web site covering state and local government issues in Houston, Texas.

Government watchdog agencies