The Dallas Observer was recognized as the best nondaily newspaper in a five-state region in this year’s Dallas Press Club awards. Three Observer writers won individual press club awards. The Dallas Bar Association also honored a fourth Observer writer last week for reporting on legal affairs. Judges selected the Observer…
By an overwhelming margin, a strikingly insignificant fraction of Dallas residents believe city council member Donna Blumer should remain with us a bit longer. Blumer, you may recall, exhibited rare political courage recently by vowing to “lay down my life” if necessary to prevent the city from selling WRR-FM 101.1…
How much is the good name of WFAA-TV Channel 8 worth? Apparently, not even six figures. The going price appears to be $30,000, or at least that’s what environmental activist Jim Schermbeck was told when he complained to Channel 8 management about an advertisement that the station is airing in…
A standoff that is bizarre even by newspaper-management standards has been playing out for the past month at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, leaving reporters and editors curious about just who is in charge of the paper’s newsroom. Vice President and Executive Editor Debbie Price, through an attorney, contends that she…
When he was running an insurance-fraud scheme out of his North Dallas office, Jeffrey H. Reynolds III would sometimes pass himself off as the Secretary of Commerce for a fictional country called the Dominion of Melchizedek. But Reynolds’ phony diplomatic title earned him no grace when he finally stood before…
With a public-relations extravaganza fit for a Royal Divorce, DART inaugurated its zippy new $900 million train set last week, finally bringing commuter-rail service to Dallas. There were opening-day parties, bevies of dignitaries, television specials, and fawning newspaper accounts. Journalists, in particular, were inundated with mounds of information on the…
At 3 o’clock in the morning, Darryl Burrows is prowling a parking lot on the northern fringe of downtown. Night lights from the city’s skyscrapers burn over empty streets, and sunrise is still several hours away. But Burrows is already damp with sweat. His glasses are askew, his hair sticks…
The search for an editorial direction which will offend no one continues to elude the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Despite its best efforts, the struggling Cowtown daily still has not managed to fully placate the Religious Right. And now, the paper’s Arlington edition managed to hack off liberals as well. Several…
The shades are open and rooms empty at the house Jeffrey H. Reynolds III once rented on Blackberry Lane. The 32-year-old check-kiter and soon-to-be federal inmate abruptly moved out about three weeks ago, shortly after pleading guilty to two counts of wire and mail fraud. During the year Reynolds lived…
WEDNESDAY Today’s weather Measured civility, chance of scattered drivel Thursday Mostly fluffy, chance of pandering NEWS That was close Unabomber captured northwest of Arlington The eyes of babes Arlington youths draw the Unabomber SPORTS Hey Ross, over here To entice Mavericks, Arlington must bend over further than Ron Kirk OPINIONS…
Debbie M. Price COMMENTARY Send not to learn for whom the broom comes I meant to write this column last week, but other things got in the way. That is the way it is with life–things get in the way of things. While some things can be handled quickly–a pink…
For more than a year, chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim has been casting about East Texas for a place to build his next processing plant. But the reputation of Pilgrim’s Pride as one of the state’s worst polluters has doggedly pursued his company, causing doors to slam in communities that do…
Driving west on Highway 67, Victor Morales has the sun at his back and a St. Patrick’s Day parade on the horizon. Early this Saturday morning, the grandson of Mexican immigrants stuck a shamrock in his lapel, slipped a toothbrush in his pocket and set out in a 4-year-old Nissan…
Neighbors think the old man who lives at the corner of Cortez and Thornberry might be a little crazy. His house is falling down, its paint is fading away, and plastic tarps cover holes in its crumbling wood-shingle roof. The old man’s yard, jammed with lumber, pipes, bricks, scaffolding, and…
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, apparently responding to recent Dallas Observer stories about its newsroom turmoil, is forcing the syndicator of nationally known columnist Molly Ivins to pull her column from the pages of the Observer. Observer Editor Peter Elkind characterizes the decision as a “blatant case of retaliation,” but says…
The March night promised to be chilly. An unusually large crowd turned out for the Sulphur Springs City Council meeting, more than could fit within the warm confines of City Hall, so the meeting was moved to the much larger civic center. When the doors opened, citizens of the small…
A campaign targeting gay journalists launched last month by the Christian, conservative American Family Association has chalked up its first victory. Responding to a complaint from an AFA member, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has transferred a gay editor out of a job that occasionally required him to work with schoolchildren…
In mid-November, journalists and editors from across Texas gathered at a downtown Dallas hotel for the annual rite of self-congratulation known as the Katie Awards. Seats cost $50. Valets parked cars. A chocolate pate dessert followed dinner. Free wine flowed as the assemblage settled in for a marathon presentation by…
Glen Coleman’s killer was not one for subtlety. When Coleman’s body was found, somebody had plugged him so many times with a .45 that bullet holes riddled virtually every part of the corpse. A coroner could not say exactly how many times the murderer pulled the trigger, but as many…
The weekend was warm in Colorado, the type of weather that puts a jingle in the cash register of anyone with something sweet and cold to peddle. Customers lined up out the door of Doug Gunn’s I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop. The frozen yogurt racket had proved a tough…
Yemen is a meager country, cobbled together from rock and sand on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. A sporadically volatile confederation of tribes that predates recorded history, Yemen still is not sure of its exact borders. It is a bit player in the Middle East, a political punk…
It’s been too much for one poor man to bear. First, David L. Park watched the city of Dallas twist itself into knots trying to build a new downtown sports arena. Then Park decided to put the city out of its misery by offering to give Dallas a brand spanking…
