A few readers have complimented us on the traditional journalistic style in covering DeWitt County news. I learned the art of journalism slowly and I’m still learning.
I grew up reading The Victoria Advocate every morning - Dear Abby and horoscopes. Later, I started reading stories and was thrilled by the new words, especially in the Associated Press articles.
As an adult in the 1990s, I had the privilege of working in The Advocate newsroom on Constitution Street. It smelled of newsprint and old cigar smoke. The ghosts of salty, old newsmen (and women) hid in corners. With a floor full of reporters at messy desks, toiling away on their beats, little did we know that the new fangled internet would all but all but kill this type of local news coverage. In December 2024, the McHaney family announced the sale of The Victoria Advocate, which is now located at the top of One O’Conner Plaza, unrecognizable except for its name (and Dear Abby).
Here at The Cuero Record, we work in one-quarter of the building that once housed a thriving local newspaper. The press that was upstairs is gone and the composing room hosts thousands of dust-gathering back copies. The 130-year history of this paper is fading away.
I mentioned this recently to a founding member of the Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum at a party commemorating its accomplishments. He advised writing a story and making my case for preservation.
The question is – what is it that needs preserving? The building? Or the craft of journalism? Or the history?
There was a rich heritage in ranching behind the CTHM, but what heritage does a newspaper claim?
In my way, I am trying to bring forward the type of local news coverage that is not only about big features, but the need-toknow points of local leadership. This model is not the recommended business model for community newspapers.
The retired publisher of The Rockport Pilot told me in October that his former paper had not published a hard news story since he left.
Perhaps what needs preserving is the idea in the audience that news literacy matters, that keeping tabs on local government matters. If your community and its newspaper shrug off that duty, how healthy is it?
Like exercising to keep fit physically, news literacy matters to one’s accurate world view. News literacy means keeping up with current events. But that means more than just national news. Local news matters too. It just doesn’t pay anymore.
When I taught at Victoria College and used local news stories in relation to bigger questions in class, my students were amazed that all kinds of stories were happening all around them without their knowledge. Some of them became newspaper subscribers.
Here in Cuero, I am a newcomer. But I consistently surprise people with important information about their community that they did not know. However, they would have known it if they read, or even scanned, their Cuero Record or Yorktown News-View.
It’s a weekly read. A good habit for the New Year. Not every page of every issue will live up to the promise of local enlightenment, but we will keep trying, especially if you keep reading.
P.S. Last year, I started this column promising to learn and share about a WWII veteran and reporter who worked at the Cuero Record in the 1950s. Ken Towery found his calling as a newsman while working at The Record. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the fraud at the Texas Veteran’s Land Bureau. It turns out that was just the start of his career. His story is one worth remembering, and I will share more over the next few months.
This year is the 70th anniversary of Towery’s Pulitzer and we are starting the commemoration with a proclamation by the Cuero City Council on January 13. Someone needs to cover that!
