Dallas Free Press hosts first South Dallas community celebration

This content originally was a newsletter Dallas Free Press emailed to insiders. To become one, sign up here for free.

Amid all the surveys, workshops, community meetings and focus groups, it’s rare that our South Dallas neighbors are invited to take a breath and celebrate.

That’s why we’re throwing our first-ever community celebration this Thursday, Oct. 20, 5:30-8:30 p.m., a party co-hosted with our friends and partners at the Dallas Weekly. It’s also a celebration of the neighborhood’s amazing local vendors — happening at the Urban Arts Center with Catering Done Wisely offering bites, Kendra’s Cocktails providing sips, DJ King Shakur spinning, and even a South Dallas artist creating live artwork!

It’s all free for neighbors! (And you can come even if you don’t stay in South Dallas! Our suggested donation is $25).

In spring 2021, at the height of the pandemic, we asked South Dallas and West Dallas neighbors to take (yet another) survey to help us understand how they perceive local media and how they think we can better serve their community. This celebration also is a chance to briefly report back to neighbors a few of the things we heard from them, and how we’re responding.

What we heard: Too much negative news
They’re so right. We receive “South Dallas” Google alerts, and most of the links are stories about crime (and many of them involve crime in southern Dallas but lump everything into the term South Dallas, which is another frustration we heard from neighbors).

How we’re responding: More good news

We don’t shy away from reporting on problems — in fact, our neighbors ask us to shed light on the stubborn inequities they deal with day-to-day. But we try to focus our content on not just problems but potential solutions, such as a parking lot turned community gathering space this past summer, or profiles of success stories and respected elders, such as this piece on South Dallas native and tireless advocate, Diane Ragsdale.

What we heard: Journalists don’t spend time here

Many participants had never communicated with a journalist, and a third of participants had never seen a reporter engaging with people in their neighborhood or community. Perhaps as a result, survey participants rated coverage of their own neighborhood as significantly less “accurate,” “authentic,” and “believable” than coverage of other communities by Dallas news outlets.

How we’re responding: Ample presence

We now office in South Dallas, thanks to the generosity of Cornerstone Baptist Church, which leases us affordable space, and the friendship of I Look Like Love, a sister South Dallas nonprofit who welcomed us to co-work with them. But more important than that, our team spends a great deal of time in our neighborhoods, whether attending neighborhood gatherings (sometimes with our pop-up newsroom!) or visiting with residents, both for reporting reasons and sometimes just to say hi and catch up.

We’ll share more of our learnings and responses soon when we announce the details of our West Dallas community celebration. Stay tuned for more exciting updates on how you can get involved in community-powered journalism!

Thank you, South Dallas neighbors, for nearly three years of warm welcomes and undeserved trust, which we’ll continue to try to earn as we work alongside you.

Keri Mitchell

Dallas Free Press founder + executive director