ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have selected five new partner organizations in Texas to participate in the second year of a local investigative initiative that supports accountability journalism in newsrooms across the state.
Over the next year, the five newsrooms — Big Bend Sentinel, the Houston Chronicle, KRIS 6 News in Corpus Christi, KXAN Investigates in Austin and the Texas Observer — will report on state and federal efforts to restrict local control, in collaboration with the Texas investigative unit housed at ProPublica and the Tribune.
In the first year of the program, state partners published deep dives into a controversial campaign to overhaul Dallas city government and the growing political power of a North Texas church called Mercy Culture; examined one of the state’s most influential lobbying groups; broke down El Paso’s struggles to build its aerospace industry; and explored Elon Musk’s increasing sway over state government. Two partners, The Texas Newsroom and the Houston Chronicle, collaborated to reveal efforts by Musk’s The Boring Company to build a flood tunnel in Houston with the help of an area congressman.
“The first year of our Texas investigative initiative demonstrated the critical role local newsrooms play in holding accountable the powerful officials of this very influential state. We are eager to keep working with local partners, so together we can be force multipliers and produce strong investigative journalism,” said Vianna Davila, deputy editor of the ProPublica-Tribune investigative unit.
The ProPublica-Tribune investigative unit started in 2020, when the newsrooms launched a first-of-its-kind collaboration to produce investigative reporting for and about Texas. Both organizations publish the team’s stories, which are distributed for free to other news outlets in Texas and beyond.
Big Bend Sentinel
Big Bend Sentinel is a weekly nonprofit print publication, with daily online stories, covering Far West Texas. The Big Bend spans three counties: Presidio, Brewster and Jeff Davis — a mountainous high desert area about the size of Switzerland.
Based in Marfa, Big Bend Sentinel focuses on in-depth reporting of local news, people and the arts in Marfa, Presidio, Alpine, Terlingua, Fort Davis, other Big Bend communities and Ojinaga, Mexico. Spanish-language stories are included each week to meet the needs of readers who prefer their news in their native language.
The news organization has emerged as a leading source of information on the federal government’s plan to build a border wall along the Rio Grande in the Big Bend region.
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest newsroom in Texas, covering the nation’s fourth-largest city. It has won the Pulitzer Prize three times.
Recent investigations have spurred reforms to utility practices at CenterPoint, the region’s energy provider; prompted the governor to call for an investigation into a $95 million Texas Lottery jackpot scheme; and exposed the risks of “zombie” oil and gas wells that can spread toxic wastewater. As part of the Chronicle’s coverage of July 4 floods that killed more than 130 people, it revealed that local officials chose to cut property taxes rather than modernize a flood warning system and that buildings were removed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps, including some in the camp where 27 girls and their counselors died. Legislators later passed laws requiring camp safety plans and limiting development in floodplains, and local officials pledged $1.5 million for an enhanced warning system.
KRIS 6 News
KRIS 6 News in Corpus Christi has served South Texas as the Coastal Bend’s NBC affiliate since 1956. The newsroom was recognized for Overall Texas Broadcast Excellence at the 2025 Texas Broadcast News Awards and has won multiple awards for public records reporting.
In its “Facing Danger” series, the newsroom exposed design flaws in the ramps to the Harbor Bridge that contributed to eight deaths in seven years from wrong-way drivers. It also uncovered $350 million in potentially illegal workforce housing deals with the Corpus Christi Housing Authority, revealed problems inside the Nueces County medical examiner’s office and uncovered lavish public spending by the Port of Corpus Christi’s executive director. Since August, KRIS 6 has been covering Corpus Christi’s intensifying water crisis through its “Running Dry” series.
KXAN Investigates
KXAN Investigates is a team of Austin-based journalists who tackle stories that spark policy change, hold leaders accountable and make communities safer. Its investigative work has received many honors, including seven national Edward R. Murrow Awards.
In 2019, KXAN Investigates launched the station’s digital-first unit, “Catalyst,” which uses innovative storytelling methods to investigate complex topics like flaws in the state’s missing persons system, mental competency challenges among Texas inmates and people dying in police custody. Since early 2025, the team has also led a larger group of 20 journalists in a multiplatform crowdsourcing project called “Undocumented: Texas’ Immigration Impact in a New Trump Era,” which explores the community impact of a new presidential administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.
Texas Observer
The Texas Observer is a nonprofit news outlet and print magazine that strives to make Texas a more equitable place through investigative reporting, narrative storytelling, and political and cultural coverage. Since its founding in 1954, the Observer has focused on communities whose stories are too often ignored or poorly told. It seeks not only to inform but to empower its readers, as it works to hold public officials and corporations accountable.
Recent award-winning investigations from the Observer include stories that unraveled government claims about Venezuelan gang membership, identified an Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor operating a racist X account, probed a death row conviction and revealed the full extent of an Austin overdose disaster.
