Rural communities

Stephen Marcantel

Stephen Marcantel works at the Acadiana Advocate in Lafayette, Louisiana, covering the news coverage gaps facing rural Acadiana, the surrounding parishes of Lafayette. He graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2022 with a bachelor's in mass communications. Since then, he has worked as a freelancer at the Acadiana Advocate covering various business and life stories. He also freelanced for the nonprofit online newspaper The Current in Lafayette. Marcantel has covered stories of mothers losing their children to fentanyl and fighting for change, food insecurity facing the poorest in our community, the lack of shelter space for those experiencing homelessness in Lafayette, and Lafayette's struggle to clean up the Vermilion River.

The Acadiana Advocate

The Advocate is Louisiana's largest daily newspaper, serving the cities of Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette with an average daily circulation of just under 100,000 and an online audience of 20 million page views per month. In 2019, the Lafayette staff was expanded, doubling in size, to reflect the company’s commitment to local journalism in South Louisiana. Our newsroom covers the parishes of Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, Iberia, Vermilion, Acadia and Evangeline.