Across Texas, there are long lines at grocery stores following power outages and frigid temperatures, via Shutterstock/By Wienot Films

Throughout Texas, a severe winter storm and failures in government planning have caused millions of people to be without electricity, heat and water during below-freezing weather this week. 

In Austin, grocery stores closed for a couple of days and then reopened with limited hours and restrictions on how much customers could buy because deliveries had not been coming. Lines of hundreds of people waited outside the groceries when they reopened. Ken Martin of investigative outlet The Austin Bulldog said he and his part-time reporter have been staying out of harm's way as they continue digging into several ongoing investigations. 

The Breckenridge Texan is an online-only community news site covering rural north-central Texas, staffed by two journalists that work from home. As such, they faced the same issues in their “newsroom” as they did at home: no water, sub-freezing temperatures that heaters just couldn’t overcome and slow internet service. They relied heavily on phone calls, email, text messaging and Facebook posts to keep on top of everything going on in the county, providing public service reporting to let the community know what was going on and how they could get help. 

Laura Lopez at San Antonio Report reports that their staff is without water and experiencing trouble accessing electricity. Without reliable internet connections, some staff members have used personal mobile phone hotspots to file and edit stories — including stories that help fellow San Antonio residents navigate the crisis, such as “SAWS CEO: San Antonians should boil water as a precaution” and “City opens convention center to residents needing warmth amid freeze, power outages.” 

The Texas Observer, impacted by blackouts, has focused on several deeper dive pieces that speak to the Texas Observer's signature strengths in digging beyond the headlines and contextualizing news events, focusing on communities whose stories are too often ignored or poorly told. It’s been covering the state’s electricity system for years and recently published a series from nine Texans around the state, sharing their experiences from these last few days.

Bob Moore at El Paso Matters reports that El Paso is the only large city in the state that is not on the ERCOT electric grid. The city saw three inches of snow and unusually cold weather, but no power failures or other disruptions, and the outlet continued to cover the city’s most important issues. 

All said it’s been a long week for their teams. This state of emergency has also affected thousands across Oklahoma and Louisiana. Here’s how you can help: 

In the last two weeks, we’ve touched on outlets that were started in response to for-profit shutdowns, influenced by the pandemic. In both cases, the outlets were started by laid-off journalists who felt strongly about continuing the reporting needed to serve their communities. 

During the pandemic, and even before, we’ve seen a new trend: conversions of for-profit outlets to nonprofit status. 

The big nonprofit news this week was the announcement that Maryland’s biggest statewide newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, may be acquired by a nonprofit formed by businessman and philanthropist Stewart Bainum Jr. to operate the organization for the benefit of the community. The acquisition is part of a deal to sell the Sun’s parent company, Tribune Publishing, to venture capital firm Alden Capital — without The Sun and several other Baltimore-area publications. 

Recently, another historic conversion made a splash when the nonprofit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media announced that the New Jersey Hills Media Group committed to a partnership to convert all fourteen of the chain’s newspapers to non-profit ownership. If successful, the chain may be the largest nonprofit weekly newspaper chain in the country. The head of the nonprofit told Columbia Journalism Review how it established the partnership and what they hope for the future.

This is part of a series on nonprofit news startups and conversions during the pandemic. Read previous features on Eden Prairie Local News and North Shore Record.

Speak to the largest gathering of nonprofit news professionals! We’re seeking speaker proposals for this year’s INN at Home, June 8 - 10, 2021 — the journalism business conference that focuses on revenue generation, audience development, racial equity, community engagement and other potential topics related to running a nonprofit news organization. For an idea of what we’re looking for, browse former conference agendas and speakers. The session proposal submission deadline is today, Feb. 19.

Sahan Journal

Texas Tribune

Columbia Insight

InsideClimate News

California Health Report

Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

💡 The Knight Foundation is giving newsrooms up to $20K to adopt/manage the digital publishing solution of their choice. Applications open March 3. 

💡 Public Interest News Foundation is launching the PINF Index, the first comprehensive survey of the independent news sector in the UK, which is based on the INN Index.

💡 Join MuckRock and Reuters during a webinar on February 24 to learn how to use a first-of-its-kind national database of deaths in local jails, offering a unique resource for news organizations looking to examine inmate mortality in the facilities they cover.

INN member International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is no stranger to collaborations, creating world-wide change through 100+ outlet investigative projects. If you’re interested in large-scale projects, ICIJ’s innovative open-source research platform gained a host of new features in 2020 — and will continue to evolve throughout the year ahead.

 

Datashare is a free open-source project to keep all documents and notes in one place for an easier way to analyze large-scale, investigative projects. 

Learn more about ICIJ’s plans for Datashare in 2021.

ProPublica has announced that Richard Tofel, its founding general manager and president since 2013, will retire from the company when a successor is in place and that its Board of Directors has launched a nationwide search to fill the post.

Editor and Publisher reports the launch of Asheville Watchdog, a free, local, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization devoted to informing the citizens of Asheville by providing fair, factual and reliable news about local government, institutions, issues, and people

The founders of nonprofit newsroom The 19th* break down how they survived launching in a pandemic and how they plan to keep readers engaged post-Trump.

The GroundTruth Project, home of Report for America, launches "Report for the World" with six reporters in India and Nigeria.

American Press Institute featured Block Club Chicago’s coronavirus hotline as it connects readers with questions to reporters with answers.

Detroit Public TV’s Great Lakes Now has won “Best News and Public Affairs” program for public broadcasting at the National Educational Telecommunications Association conference.