Another day, another unflinching news story by Scott Huddleston about the Alamo and its troubled caretaker, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

Check out how Scott has carved out a unique beat by aggressively covering problems at the Shrine of Texas.

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Newspapers are very good at producing something we all know: the news article. But Scott has been writing article after article about the problems at the Alamo. In fact, his first story was published two years ago. Like many newspapers, we haven’t done a very good job tying those stories together online to give readers the context and history of the controversy. We’re not answering a basic question about the issue: How did we get here?

Scott got involved when a tipster told him that some members of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas questioned the group’s leadership, and were forming their own splinter group to raise money for the Alamo.

“I wanted the story to be more than ‘she said, she said,'” Scott told me. He began obtaining copies of contracts, emails, letters — anything that would shed light on what was going on at the Alamo. He found examples of questionable spending and a lack of focus. “Their biggest challenge was an inability to raise money for capital improvements,” Scott said.

Before his first article was published, Scott heard that the Dallas Morning News was working on its own story about troubles at the Alamo. Nothing gets a reporter’s heart pumping like another reporter chasing down the same story. He kept digging, partly because he didn’t want to get scooped by the Morning News.

“I felt like I needed to be shaking the bushes just to keep up with them,” Scott said.

After his first story about the rift was published, he filed an open records request with the state of Texas to find out how the Daughters were spending funds raised from license plates with Alamo themes. It turned out the Alamo only received a portion of the funds for upkeep.

As more members of the Daughters publicly criticized the group’s leadership, some were expelled for speaking with the media, which led to more follow-up stories.

“They deserve a lot of credit,” Scott said of the outspoken critics. State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, also took a keen interest in the issue and eventually wrote a bill that shifted more oversight of the Alamo to the state. The bill became law on Sept. 1 and significantly altered the role of the Daughters. The Texas General Land Office now oversees the Alamo, and will determine what role the Daughters will play as a contractor of the state. If a contract between the state and the Daughters isn’t signed by Jan. 1, control of the Alamo and the site’s equipment and property acquired with state funds must be transferred to the Land Office.

Scott wrote at least 60 articles in the past two years that mentioned the Alamo and its troubled caretaker. Most stories were about the turmoil within the organization and its track record at the Alamo. For long, seemingly never-ending sagas like this, newspapers really need to devise a way to help readers see the whole picture.

Google’s Living Stories project tried to address this problem. It’s no longer supported but it inspired ProPublica to generate a similar design that gives readers a timeline and easy access to past posts about the topic they’re interested in.

It’d be great if newspapers came up with something like Living Stories. Sometimes a story is bigger than a single article. We ought to figure out a way to systematically tell that story in a compelling way.

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Express-News Reporter Scott Huddleston, who’s been covering the turmoil within the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, wrote a follow-up story about a discussion to prohibit the nonprofit’s employees from talking to the media — even after the employees no longer work for the group:

Read more: How much did it cost to save the Alamo?

The women who run the Alamo deny that they’re trying to muzzle anyone.

But the Daughters of the Republic of Texas have mulled a plan to deter Alamo employees from talking to the media, even after they’ve moved on.

Patti Atkins, DRT president-general, said the group is trying to stop a flow of “misinformation.”

“We have no intention of putting a gag order on anybody,” Atkins said.

According to minutes of an Aug. 12 meeting, the DRT’s Alamo Committee sent a proposed policy on media access to a lawyer for review. It would require new Alamo employees to acknowledge that when their employment ended, they’d be forbidden from giving interviews or making any “representations of the Alamo.”

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Express-News Reporter Scott Huddleston has written a story that reveals how some caretakers of the Alamo are splitting from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, the nonprofit organization that oversees the historic mission in San Antonio:

Tensions within the group running the Alamo have fueled an unprecedented schism, casting uncertainty on the future of the Shrine of Texas Liberty.

Two members of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas are forming their own nonprofit to benefit the Alamo, despite the DRT’s objections.

“I think the split has been a long time coming,” said Erin Bowman, the San Antonian leading the effort.

Related: How to find an investigative reporter in San Antonio

Conflicts within the DRT, which has run the state’s top tourist attraction since 1905, are frequent. But some say in-fighting among the Daughters is the worst it’s been in years, amid the pressure of raising a record $60 million for the state-owned Alamo in a down economy.

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