I can’t take it anymore—and I know many of you can’t either. The Dallas Express was created for one purpose; to help make our city a better place. That’s it. It’s a non-profit operation and there’s no other agenda.
The Dallas Express will be a daily news source that serves every member of our community. It will be a place to learn about what’s happening in Dallas, without a political agenda. It will not be left-leaning or right-leaning; it will present news about our city straight down the center.
We won’t use much-abused “anonymous source” tricks to make news fit a narrative. In fact, we won’t use any anonymous sources at all without my approval, which will be rare. You’ll find we report what named sources, documents and data make clear, and not much else. This is the kind of news you can expect at The Dallas Express.
We also have an innovation that’s truly unique. Our Community Newsmaker is a way for members of our community to drive our news process. Do you know someone who deserves recognition? Just click on our Community Newsmaker button in the upper right portion of the front page to submit your story. We’ll do our best to report as many submissions as possible.
If you want to read opinions, we have an Editorial section for that, and we will invite members of the community to offer their views. Guest editorials will be from differing viewpoints. We are unique in the Dallas area in that we truly do value diversity of opinion and you won’t be shamed for having opinions different from what television talking heads say you should have. If the opinions offend you then please just skip over them and enjoy learning more about the great people and events in our community. What is important is that we pursue solutions together that work. In the end, that’s all I want.
A central question for our readers will be, why are nearly all cities in our great nation in such dire straights? Most, including Dallas, are marred with higher than average crime rates, high levels of poverty, poor education for our kids, and fiscal irresponsibility. Does this have to be the case? Are cities, through forces we don’t understand, destined to always be this way?
In business, higher volumes create lower unit costs, and the focus is always on producing better outcomes. But American cities are the opposite for some reason. This is what The Dallas Express will seek to uncover as a first step to help our community improve. I won’t care if solutions come from the left, the right, or from a man on the moon, but I do know this; what we are doing is not working and more of it won’t make it better.
My father is full of terrific wisdom. One of his sayings is, “If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting.” That’s certainly the case with our city. We need to try new approaches to achieve different results. We need to constantly innovate.
We have a great city full of great people from all walks of life. They should be celebrated for who they are and what they do. I don’t think we do that enough.
I was quoted in another news publication about the dread most business leaders experience when reporters call. Why? Because many local publications prefer to report alarming and negative information. Years ago I was even blackmailed by a reporter at a leading Ft. Worth publication who threatened me with negative press coverage if I didn’t do her bidding.
Somewhere journalism lost its way. Many reporters are awesome, talented people. But I’ve come across too many who already have their version of a story ready before gathering the facts. Imagine the journalism we would have if our best reporters used their skills to produce better reporting rather than push an agenda. I also see journalists present wrong information as facts. Other times, journalists don’t bother checking sources or asking questions. In their pursuit to push an agenda, the truth gets lost.
As publisher, I won’t be involved in the daily operations of this new publication. However, I will continually push our reporters and editors to be strictly objective. I also plan to push them to cover events and people that I think are important to our community.
As a reader, I want to hear from pastors, church elders, priests, and other religious leaders. I want to hear from business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals. I want to hear from the heads of charities who’ve figured out how to help our fellow citizens in ways that don’t create dependence. And I want to hear about new policies that can make our city and education system the best in the world. I do not want to flog policies that simply aren’t working, and I don’t want to hear much from celebrities or journalists. With respect, we already hear plenty from those folks. We’ll even have a light touch on hearing from politicians.
It will take time to make The Dallas Express what we want it to be, so be patient with us. Along the way, give us a shot to be your local news source. I think you’ll be happy with what you get. No doubt we’ll get sniping from the cheap seats. No matter. We’ll just keep doing what we need to do to make The Dallas Express and our city the best that both can be.
Thank you for reading. It’s going to be a fun ride.