Bob Mong stood in front of several hundred journalists at the Hyatt Regency this past November to sell them his dream. Mong, editor of The Dallas Morning News, told his staff, “I want to speak to you today about our aspirations…as a newspaper.” He told them he’s in charge of…
5 things Bob Mong should do Use Associated Press stories: Readers do not read bylines except for those of columnists and sportswriters. Let the wire services cover the day-to-day national stories and use your staff for analysis, opinion and investigation. Assign three Sacred Cow beats: Put one investigator on Tom…
The lawsuit reads more like a lesson in black history than it does a class action in federal court. Its pleadings tell the sad tale of Andrew Jackson Hurdle, a 10-year-old slave who was torn from his family in 1855 and sold to a Texas cotton farmer who purchased him…
More than a week after another disappointing loss to the Sacramento Kings, the same odd mixture of feelings likely ties your gut in knots. The All Star break probably did little to assuage your fears, and yet there is hope. That strange dichotomy is the burden that both you and…
Hate Groups for Peace Deals with the devil: And here I was thinking I was one of only two or three who had questions about this peace coalition for many of the same reasons mentioned in Mark Donald’s “Get On the Bus” (February 6). Thank you, Mark. I have heard…
Say AnythingJust in time for Valentine’s Day, we received a book in the office titled Speaking of Sex: Funny, Wicked & Joyful Remarks About Almost Everybody’s Favorite Subject. It is a Bartlett’s-style book with quotes about love and sex, which aren’t always synonymous at Full Frontal’s crib. It is, perhaps,…
A Buzz reader wrote in to suggest that we make some comment on a Dallas Morning News report last week that the Sheriff’s Department somehow lost 50 keys that could be used to start about 180 cop cars. “Surely this deserves some commentary, preferably of a more flippant variety,” the…
It’s hard to know how to dress for the peace protest in Washington, D.C.: warm gloves, ski parka, sensible shoes, a gas mask. My wife has unwittingly packed some snacks into a Gap bag. I repackage them in a Whole Foods sack, unwilling to risk the ire of anti-globalization types…
Dallas park officials would probably prefer that you not read this article. You can’t really blame them, though. You might not be interested in publicity either if you were talking about replacing most of a pastoral Dallas park with 40 soccer fields and 1,600 parking spaces–all of it belonging to…
It’s a strange sight because, really, Raja Bell shouldn’t even be here. If he were someone else, someone not quite as lucky–if he were me–he would be across the Atlantic Ocean, shaking his head over a decision he made that proved rash. Instead, he’s walking around the practice court with…
Off the Hizzle I’m not a lucky man, know that right now. But after a hard night of drinking and gambling in Shreveport recently, I hit the f-ing jackpot. I was watching the Cowboys’ year-end special on KTVT when wideouts Rocket Ismail and Reggie Swinton started freestyling. Rapping, that is…
Following a large-scale tragedy, such as the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia, media critics often dissect coverage of the event on television and in newspapers–something Buzz usually doesn’t do. For one thing, daily media outlets, both local and national, are usually at their best as such crises unfold, and…
Rusty’s Pity PartyGrow up and shut up: As a Houston-area resident, I was severely nauseated by Rusty Yates’ ongoing self-pity party (“Tracks of His Tears,” by Carlton Stowers, January 23). As his wife languishes in Harris County’s substandard corrections/mental health system, he futilely attempts to convince the world he is…
Sherri DuPree blows a bubble with her chewing gum, because that’s all she can do right now. The gear has already been loaded in from the trailer, and another group is onstage, running through its sound check. Her brother Weston kneels in the corner, tuning his drums, and her sisters,…
There, just beneath the topsoil on a vacant downtown lot where an outhouse once stood, Alex Troup found a trove of gloriously bawdy objects, most of them dating to the late 1800s. The first items that captured Troup’s imagination were the tiny, tubular-shaped glass vials. One had “Burnett’s Cocaine” stamped…
HOUSTON–At 6 o’clock on a clear Saturday morning, Mike Grant went to NASA’s Johnson Space Center to join Mission Control in the final welcome back for the returning space shuttle Columbia. The 19-year-old aeronautical engineering major at Purdue University–Neil Armstrong’s alma mater, he was quick to point out–has been working…
Visitors to Forbidden Media are used to finding something unexpected, out of the ordinary and, sometimes, a little shocking among the store’s selection of videos, books and posters on Exposition Avenue near the gates to Fair Park. They would go there in search of items not available at chain stores,…
Buzz has very little job pressure. Sure, Buzz faces deadlines like every other journalist (“You mean I’m supposed to write 400 words every week?”). But the folks at corporate have been so busy lately, taking meetings with the U.S. Justice Department and such (long story; check out last Sunday’s New…
Joe Avezzano is living his nightmare. He’s coaching, just as he has with the Cowboys for the past 13 seasons. The wind is kicking up, and it’s cold enough on the field that the players can see their breath. The game is football. The trouble lies not in the similarities,…
Down the DrainOur leaky water department: I live in a 19-unit condominium, and we haven’t received a water bill since December 1999! If the city of Dallas keeps this up (“Eeek, the Facts!” by Jim Schutze, January 23), they’ll certainly go the way of other poorly run businesses. I just…
Heather Graham is bendy. I know this because she wants to do yoga during the course of this interview, done to promote her new movie (The Guru, reviewed on page 49). She does it five times a week–did it earlier this very day, in fact, a few hours before we…
So what, Buzz wonders, would Martin Luther King Jr. make of the war fever gripping certain parts of the country, specifically that part residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.? Young people putting on uniforms and taking up guns to march: Would King approve? And what if they were marching in a…
