in addition to police work watkins also covered criminal and civil trials as well as city hall meetings in bryan and college station with a constant influx of stories at the eagle and the guidance of the eagle s managing editor at the time kelly brown watkins was able to sharpen his journalistic craft during the years he worked there in contrast to the smaller staff of the eagle watkins next role at the dallas morning news allowed even more resources to pursue his reporting at times including out of state travel to cover waging court battles or unearth public documents in 2015 the texas tribune in austin reached out to watkins to take an open position at their publication the opportunity was long-awaited since his childhood he had always admired evan smith the editor of his favorite magazine texas monthly when smith left texas monthly to start the texas tribune in 2010 watkins respect for the journalist grew even more at the time cutbacks to texas government news coverage were being made to publications across the state in light of the economic recession it was not a good thing for the state and it was not a good thing for democracy watkins said the state government the legislature the governor their actions really impact lives in a very significant and deep way and texans need to understand whats going on there and whats being done in their name losing those journalists was making it a lot harder while working for the eagle watkins reached out to smith and ross ramsey a long-time austin journalist to express his esteem for them and to ask for a position at the texas tribune although he was turned down at first watkins deep appreciation for their work kept the three of them in touch five years later watkins found himself accepting the role of a reporter at the tribune watkins is passionate about journalism serving the interest of the public and sees it as an essential cog to democracy at the tribune this is what the founding was and this is what we still try to do now watkins explained we really try our hardest to dig deep into how government particularly state government is affecting the lives of texans the good and the bad thats basically what we do everyday were really kind of laser focused on that mission of informing and engaging texans with their government so they can play their role responsibly in democracy when reflecting on how his liberal arts education influenced his career watkins says that a communication course he took called journalism as a profession put him in the direction of where he is now additionally the political science classes he took familiarized him with how the american political system functions in order to be a responsible accurate and fair journalist its really important to be engaged intellectually with the world to be able to think critically to try to know about a lot of topics and to be well read watkins said in a lot of the classes i took as a liberal arts major thats one of the big goals of the liberal arts program is to expose you to those things and teach you to be a critical thinker i think that is hugely important and one of those things that you need before you get into the newsroom i can teach someone and help edit their story but i cant force them to be interested in certain topics or engaged with the world around them