Inside a small Texas daily that covered Harvey and kept helping community even after losing power

All journalists work hard for stories, but keeping the coverage current during a natural disaster requires a special kind of guts. Newsrooms in southeast Texas are rising to the challenge, including The Victoria Advocate. Located about two hours southwest of Houston, the Advocate is a locally owned daily that covers seven rural Texas counties with a staff of 35. Founded in 1846, it's the state's second oldest newspaper, so the staff knows a thing or two about staying power. And last Friday morning, they showed up to stay for a while.

Kristen Hare of The Poynter Institute reports that staffers brought non-perishable food, air mattresses, clothes, and even pets to the newsroom, expecting they wouldn't be able to leave for a while after the storm hit later that day. The newspaper had no power from Friday night through Sunday, and no water from Friday night through Monday. It had three backup generators to power laptop computers during the weekend, but wasn't able to print until Tuesday night. "Instead, the newsroom has focused on publishing breaking news and resources for the community, reporting on Facebook Live and telling the stories of residents," Hare reports from her telephone interview. "Those stories show up online and are woven together for the front page of the e-edition." Today, the paper announced that it plans to resume "limited home delivery" tomorrow.

Partial screen grab of the Victoria Advocate's home page

As of yesterday, 11 staffers were still sleeping at the office. Luckily, a restaurant on the building's first floor has been feeding newspaper staffers and others in the community. The Advocate is doing its part to help the community, not just through keeping people updated on the storm and cleanup, but by serving as an information resource for callers. "People have been calling the newsroom from outside Victoria and asking for help figuring out the best directions to reach loved ones in town. A few staffers are dedicated to figuring out the best routes," Hare reports. Copy desk chief J.R. Ortega says the newsroom is embracing that role. "We will help them get to where they need to go," he told Hare. "As a community paper, we feel like we need to keep them safe."

UPDATE, Sept. 11: Ken Esten Cooke, editor of the Fredericksburg Standard, salutes the Advocate and other newspapers that kept going through Harvey, performing "sacrificial deeds from a group of people that are maligned sometimes even as 'enemies of the American people.' Those people are us. Those journalists live in those communities, pay taxes, struggle with their own family issues and still show up to pitch in when disaster strikes. Journalists, by nature, are horrible at trumpeting their own good deeds. All these I have mentioned will boast about their friends in the bass boats, but may not publish much about themselves."