What comments do you have for next ethics board meeting?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

Here is the agenda for Tuesday's meeting of our ethics board. We welcome your comments on the topics below or anything else. We also have discussed adding a couple of community members to the board. We'd want them to be ...

Many lessons left to learn from Fatal Funnel

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

In e-mail exchanges, Advocate newsroom staffers compliment the best work of the day in print or online. In this way, we try to encourage more good journalism and recognize the hard work that goes in to producing it. Here's an ...

How much do you think a funeral escort costs?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

I asked in a post the other day about the cost of police officers providing funeral escorts. Thanks again to all who participated in that discussion. Based on the questions raised there, I went to Victoria Police Chief Bruce Ure ...

Who knew what and when?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

A couple of readers questioned our headline on Thursday's story about the indicted four's hearing. Every twist and turn of this saga invites scrutiny, of course. The question -- "Could charges be dropped?" -- is meant to be neutral. We're ...

What if newspapers quit allowing readers to comment on stories?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

Advocate reporter Brandon Leonard spotted this Gawker story arguing that newspaper shouldn't allow comments to its news articles. What do you think? Personally, I've found a lot of value in readers adding tips and insights into our coverage. The community ...

My sister called last night to make sure I was OK

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

She wanted to know if we were OK in hurricane country. Yes, my out-of-state relatives don't really know Brownsville from Victoria. I reassured my sweet sis that all is well around Victoria. Brownsville is bracing for the worst as the ...

You can watch video of Dolly on demand

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

The Associated Press offers video coverage of Hurricane Dolly whenever it's convenient for you. You don't need to wait for the 6 or 10 o'clock news. You can see the video by clicking here. Our state stories from AP arrive ...

Special hurricane section keeps you informed

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

The largest news team in the Crossroads region is on the lookout for you as Tropical Storm Dolly approaches. It appears Dolly will track well south of us, but you can't be too careful. When a tropical storm or hurricane ...

Questions keep coming up about moderating online forums

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

I doubt we'll ever be able to moderate an online forum to everyone's satisfaction. A blogger today raised questions about comments being deleted. Another asked about how we decide what to delete and why we don't explain more about those ...

How many police departments still provide funeral escorts?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

I was cruising down Main Street toward downtown Saturday morning when I had to brake suddenly even though my light was green at Crestwood. A police officer with lights on had pulled out into the intersection even though he had ...

What did you think of the New Yorker cover on Obama?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

The Washington Post's culture critic did an online interview with readers about the New Yorker's attempt at satire with its recent cover of Barack Obama. I don't know whether satire is dead, but I did stop at this quote from ...

How do you handle the emotions stirred by a child's death?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

All journalists will tell you they dread going to the scene of a traffic fatality. It's many times worse when the victim is a small child, as we reported in Friday's Advocate. Reporter Leslie Wilber and photojournalist Roni Gendler were ...

Why couldn't Victoria offer this for families?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

My sister-in-law drove our two families from Omaha to the small farm town of Fremont, Neb., population 25,000. Why, you ask, would we drive 30-45 minutes outside metropolitan Omaha? Because little Fremont has built a state-of-the-art Splash Station Family Fun ...

What are your thoughts about the Ratcliff coverage?

By ChrisCobler in Your Advocate: an editor's blog

Out of state on vacation, I followed Thursday's news via our Web site and couldn't be more impressed with the work everyone did. I was able to keep up with what happened inside the courtroom almost as soon as the ...