DALLAS SOUTH NEWS, NONPROFIT NEWSPAPER, PREPARES FOR LAUNCH
Categories: Dallas, Featured, Media
Written By: Shawn Williams
DALLAS NONPROFIT NEWSPAPER OPENS NEWSROOM AND HIRES LOCAL WRITER/BLOGGER TO SERVE AS EDITOR
Dallas, TX - The Board of Directors for Dallas South News announced its progress towards launching a new nonprofit online newspaper. The organization recently opened their newsroom at the Southside on Lamar in the historic Sears Building. The board held its first meeting on June 27th.
Dallas South News will utilize professional journalists, citizen journalists, bloggers, and volunteers to cover issues that are relevant to residents of Southern Dallas.
The board also announced the hiring of Shawn P. Williams to serve as editor of the newspaper. Williams has published the critically acclaimed blog, Dallas South, for the past three years, and is a frequent guest columnist for the Dallas Morning News.
“Dallas South News provides a unique opportunity for the residents of Dallas,” Williams says. “As legacy media outlets continue to evolve, the nonprofit model empowers citizen journalists to help fill the void left by budget cuts and staff reductions,” he says.
The Dallas South News’ Board of Directors contains a variety of experience including members of both traditional and new media; including, Evelyn Henry Miller, a financial executive whose most recent role was as executive vice president for The Dallas Morning News, A.H. Belo’s flagship newspaper.
Also on the Dallas South News Board of Directors is veteran journalist Bob Ray Sanders. Sanders currently serves as Associate Editor and Senior Columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Sanders also worked many years in public broadcasting at KERA-TV Channel 13, the Dallas/Fort Worth PBS affiliate.
Other board members include blogger and Central Dallas Ministries Education Director Janet Morrison; Marcia Page, President and CEO of the Foundation for Community Empowerment; Paul Stafford, Former Chair of the Dallas Bar Association Board of Directors; and Jeff West, former Executive Director of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
Dallas South News has registered with the State of Texas, and is currently awaiting a 501(c)(3) designation from the Internal Revenue Service. The launch of the website is planned for early August of this year.
Dallas South News is a non-profit organization utilizing technology, social media, and journalistic principles to empower and inform diverse communities.
For more information contact: Shawn Williams at 214-923-5013 or shawn@dallassouthblog.com
July 20th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
*Of course the obvious joke would be ‘non-profit newspaper’ as if that’s not the ongoing issue with traditional press these days nationally.
Shawn, you’re a good and talented man with honorable intent and an awareness of things that are not strictly relative to his personal life and experience. In other words, your ‘opinion’ is not strictly something you’ve read or observed or learned or experienced. It is all the above. Is that what they mean when they say ‘empathetic’? Yes. But they also mean smart and hard working. And intellectually curious about people LIKE you and those who are NOT ‘like’ you. I like that about you……..
You’re also generous to others and write meaningful prose here and elsewhere as with yesterday’s DMN thoughtful POINTS piece.
Bottom line~~~~The more I get to know Shawn Williams, the more I feel he is the real thing in real time. And let me tell you….he’s also a man of faith whose daily proof there is a God is that one of this earth’s most beautiful women married him! So there.
I look forward to contributing to your new venture. My whole 21rst century has been non-profit so it’s a fit. First a new baby and now a new paper? Congrats!
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:04 am
I am hoping that in the new foremat venue whatever, the news can be covered more in depth locally than has been possible. For instance, the corruption trial of Don Hill and others that is in progress right now has not been covered if it has even been mentioned.
Which has been frustrating to me as this is a very big deal inside and outside the black comminities. And has far-reaching implications beyond the obvious. I have attended the trial on more than one occassion and it is very complex and disturbing, however you slice the issues and revelations. As it is, my best source for coverage has been the Observer’s Unfair Park.
Lifting my glass (actually my cup of coffee) to the new Dallas South News!