Don’t mess with Texas journalism: Olivia Messer on heading up The Barbed Wire
The veteran journalist discusses her return to local journalism and her vision for a new kind of Texas news outlet.
Olivia Messer is carving out a new space for progressive, independent news in the heart of the Lone Star State. With the launch of The Barbed Wire, “a next-generation digital media property for all Texans who love Texas,” the veteran journalist is bringing her wealth of experience from national outlets back to her home state, aiming to create a publication that’s as bold and multifaceted as Texas itself.
From her early days as a fellow at the Texas Observer during the 2013 state legislative session and her time as a local reporter at the Waco Tribune-Herald, Messer climbed the ranks in a way that was once common but is increasingly rare: by covering major national news events and catching the eye of larger outlets. Her reporting on the 2015 biker shooting in Waco led her to The Daily Beast, where she honed her investigative skills and developed the sharp, incisive voice that would become her trademark.
Now, as the editor-in-chief of The Barbed Wire, Messer is synthesizing all she's learned — from the gritty determination of local reporting to the fast-paced world of national news — into a new vision for Texas journalism. Drawing inspiration from the fearless reporting of early Gawker, the must-read quality of The Daily Beast's best years, and the splashy essays of The Cut, Messer aims to create a publication that's locally relevant yet interesting on a national level.
In this edition of Depth Perception, we sit down with Messer to discuss the birth of The Barbed Wire, her experiences in the trenches of journalism, and her thoughts on the future of the industry. Messer offers a candid look at what it takes to build a newsroom from the ground up in today's media climate. —Parker Molloy
How did The Barbed Wire come into existence?
Jeff [Rotkoff], our publisher, called me about 18 months ago to see what I thought about the concept of adding a progressive, independent outlet to the Texas media ecosystem. I knew and trusted Jeff as a source on my bipartisan reporting on misconduct — which he’s okay with me saying — in the Texas Capitol, but it was really [Gawker cofounder] Elizabeth Spiers’ involvement that piqued my interest. I was an avid Jezebel and Gawker reader in its true heyday. And I couldn’t be a bigger fan of the way Elizabeth carved a path for (fearless, tattooed) women from the South in the New York media landscape. She’s a force to be reckoned with.
The Barbed Wire is the product of more than a year of thinking, writing, and planning. I moved back to Austin last October to finish a now-published, year-long investigation for Texas Monthly and to recruit and fundraise for The Barbed Wire. I spent some time as a media consultant on the project at first. Then we all caught that, without meaning to, I was pretending not to have my own vision for what I believed the newsroom should look like.
Why did you become a journalist?
I spent a long time afraid that I wouldn’t be any good at it. It really took an editor on my college paper saying, “We’re down a 200-word piece. Can you just write one? It doesn’t have to be perfect.” And then, soon, I was addicted to the feeling of witnessing something important, uncovering some new morsel, coming up with a clever turn of phrase, realizing that I’ve found something that hasn’t yet been written about but matters, and shining spotlights on injustices. This job empowers you to walk up to the most powerful person you can find and challenge them. That’s an incredible privilege — and it really ruined any chance I had at doing anything else.
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What story of yours are you proudest of?
I spent more than a year — but really, a decade — on my investigations into misconduct at the Texas Capitol. It’s the most time and energy I’ve ever given to one subject, starting in 2013 at the Observer and then in 2017 at the Beast and now for Texas Monthly.
What story of yours do you most regret?
I don’t know that I regret covering anything outright, but I certainly regret lots of smaller choices. Writing an essay while still in the midst of a trauma. Not pushing back on headlines that felt too sensational. Not trying harder to contact a source who I wrongly believed wasn’t interested in speaking. There’s something I’d do differently now from every single year of my career. I’d hesitate to cite any specifics or link back to those because, given the chance, I’d try to update and improve them. I learned something from every piece that I no longer would write today, and those lessons were invaluable.
What’s the best journalistic career advice you ever received?
When I wasn’t sure if I should stay at a higher-paid job as an editorial assistant or move to Waco, take a paycut, and become a full-time reporter, Forrest Wilder (now at Texas Monthly) and Saul Elbein (now at The Hill) both told me that reporting really only involves one thing: Doing it. If I wanted to be a reporter, I had to do reporting.
And a few months ago, during a long, [tearful] phone call with Texas’s best journalist, Pamela Colloff, I was really in my head about that Texas Monthly investigation. She made me write this down: “Quit talking and thinking. Just write.” At some point, you just have to throw something at the wall and start moulding it. Plus, anything on Pulitzer Prize winner Ken Armstrong’s tipsheet, which is a PDF full of advice for journalists. I come back to it every few weeks.
“This job empowers you to walk up to the most powerful person you can find and challenge them. That’s an incredible privilege — and it really ruined any chance I had at doing anything else.” — Olivia Messer
What’s the worst journalistic career advice you ever received?
I think it was more of a lack of guidance. Especially for breaking and crime news, we send so many young journalists who are not trauma-informed into communities going through the worst day of their lives.
I didn’t know when I was 22 how much I should have been questioning official word from authorities and the ways I was unintentionally causing harm. In my local reporting days, I could and should have pushed back on assignments that were dangerous, involved someone I knew, or just didn’t feel right in my bones. I know a lot of other crime and breaking news reporters who say the same thing about their entry-level years. At some point, you’re at a crime scene or entering a hospital room or otherwise intruding on someone’s life and thinking, “Wait, what am I even doing here?” Sometimes those stories are in the public interest. But when they’re not, they are impossible to forget. As they should be.
What is a widely accepted journalistic rule or norm that you hate?
I talk about this in my opening letter from the editor for The Barbed Wire. It’s the most articulate I’ve yet been on this topic: “Many of us have even pretended not to have a viewpoint — a bizarre task that requires the person doing the writing and information-gathering to imagine they weren’t born in a body, didn’t live in a place, and never experienced hardship….” [Read the rest here.]
What makes you feel hopeful for the future of journalism?
The people. My team at The Barbed Wire makes me feel so incredibly hopeful.
This past year, I was invited to judge the MOLLY National Journalism Prize, and I got the chance to read some stunning investigative reporting I otherwise would have missed. The sheer volume of reporting that gets done every year in this country by profoundly dedicated journalists is an incredible thing to behold.
People like Keri Blakinger who challenge authority and shine spotlights where they’re needed, producing journalism that, sure, wins awards, but also changes laws and the actual lives of incarcerated populations. The inimitable Ben Collins, who could very well save print journalism through his helm at The Onion. That, and every single time I read a new story by Skip Hollandsworth.
Further reading from Olivia Messer
“‘Gods in the Building’: How the Texas Senate Buries Sexual Harassment Complaints and Enables Bad Actors” by Messer and Cara Kelly (Texas Monthly, August 2024)
“The ‘Shameful’ End of a Crucial Texas Muckraker” (The Daily Beast, March 27, 2023)
“She Only Has One Good Lung. She Can't Get the Vaccine.” (The Daily Beast, Jan. 16, 2021)
“How I Learned to Cover the Terrifying COVID-19 Pandemic” (The Daily Beast, Aug. 14, 2020)
“Biker gang shootout leaves 9 dead, 18 wounded, ongoing investigation” (Waco Tribune-Herald, May 17, 2015)