"We don’t get it right every time," Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong told the Public School People group Friday afternoon, talking about how the News covers DISD. He pointed out, however, that the News is working hard to provide balanced coverage of public education in Dallas and encouraged people to contact the News with story ideas, understanding that with 160,000 students in DISD, every story idea can’t be published but adding that if the News doesn’t know about a story idea, it’s certainly not going to be published.
Attending the meeting along with Mong was News education editor Kit Lively. The group of about 45 people (almost all of whom raised their hands when asked if they had children in DISD schools) asked a number of questions, and a few people took the News to task for doing what they said was a poor job of covering DISD. Mong took the criticism in stride, making plenty of notes with story ideas offered by the audience. One person in the crowd said she believed the News didn’t care about DISD coverage until she got in touch with someone at the paper and convinced them to cover an event at her school; after receiving the coverage, she said she was happy with News coverage of DISD — until next year, when her event occurs again and she’ll be expecting even more coverage, she laughed.
The News covers education with three full-time reporters, Mong said, which is a large number when compared with other daily newspapers in the Southwest, but an admittedly insufficient number when matched with DISD’s size. Additional News outlets such as Neighborsgo, Al Dia and the Viewpoints pages also are available for education coverage and provide a significant amount, Mong said. When questioned about why private schools don’t seem to be subjected to the same rigorous coverage as DISD when it comes to scandals, Mong said that issue was a challenge the News was continuously addressing. The group’s final question, posed by Stonewall Elementary parent Vince Murchison, dealt with whether the News spent time considering the implications on DISD and the community at-large of some of its DISD coverage; Mong assured Murchison that the News takes its obligations as a community member seriously and said staffers spend lots of time discussing the impact its stories have on the people and institutions in Dallas.
