I’m Carolina. I’m a media professional based in South Texas. I manage an events calendar and blog called, todovictoria. I work with a team to provide coverage of interesting events in Victoria and its surrounding region. Our mission at todovictoria is to educate small business owners on how to use social media marketing effectively, be accessible to a Bilingual audience and to empower community-driven events in the Crossroads.
I moved to Victoria in 2012 to work as the Education Reporter for the second-oldest newspaper in Texas, the Victoria Advocate.
I spent four years covering the Education beat before taking a four month hiatus in the art world working for the Five Points Museum of Contemporary Art. And then returned to the Victoria Advocate as its Creative Editor. I later transitioned into a Digital Editor role at the Advocate as our management team grew.
As a reporter for the Advocate, I covered higher education, K-12 and early education. I was an active member of the Education Writers Association and produced a special package about the achievement gap in Victoria compared to the rest of the state, called “Closing the Gaps.”
In the role of editor, I designed two special pages for the national events that hit our small-town community in 2017. The Mosque Fire page was built the same day a Victoria man set our local mosque on fire after the President announced the travel ban. We were the center of the universe that day, and then again when Hurricane Harvey landed in nearby Refugio County and devastated the Victoria area with 100 mph winds. Storm of the Century, The First 72 Hours and Understanding Harvey pages were awarded Best Online Package in Texas.
Before the Victoria Advocate, I worked at Minnesota Public Radio as the newsroom coordinator and CultureMap Houston as Listings Editor.
I grew up in the suburbs of Houston and studied Broadcast Journalism with a focus in radio at the University of Missouri-Columbia and minored in film studies. I one day hope to own my cinema art house.
Carolina Astrain 