According to the date on this, the DMN launched its Curious Texas feature on December 18 of last year. They call it a “project,” but I feel like that’s a little grand for something described by the paper as follows: “The idea is simple: You have questions, and our journalists are trained to track down answers.” But, whatever. Call it a project.
So far, the questions posed to Curious Texas have ranged from “no one outside of your aunt who watches nothing but MSNBC really thinks this” (“Are all Texans Republicans?”) to “awfully specific for a question from a reader” (“What’s hiding in the State Fair of Texas archives?”) to “shouldn’t someone on staff have already been working on this?” (“Why isn’t the Dallas police chief in uniform yet?”) to “lemme google that for you” (“Is it illegal to pick to Texas bluebonnets?”) to “who really cares?” (“What’s with all the ‘Barton’ names in Texas?”). They also spent something like 2,000 words unsatisfactorily answering someone who wondered if you could get around on a trip to Dallas and Fort Worth using only public transportation. Honestly, that rambling piece brought up more questions than it answered.
The whole thing, to me, is just a bad idea to begin with and chisels away at the paper’s authority. I’m not glass-housing this — we have bad ideas, too. (I came up with that cover shot.) And maybe I’m making too much of it. Most of the questions are harmless, if kind of pointless. But the item about Chief Renee Hall really bugs me. At best, it was a way to lightly editorialize the situation without taking ownership; the actual question, from Elizabeth Ehrsam of Plano, was “I keep seeing the new police chief without a uniform. Is becoming a Dallas police chief that hard?” At worst, none of the city hall/police reporters thought to ask it.
Anyway, Curious Texas seems like a pretty thankless task for reporters to take on. Which leads me to my question: how are these items assigned? Is there a chore wheel or something, and whoever’s name comes up has to google the pants off whatever question is up next or what?
