Up to now I’ve been talking about news sources I read or at least wouldn’t turn up my nose at when they turn up on Google. Today I’m going to talk about one that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole other than to check out the two-minute hate from our billionaire would-be overlords. That’s the Dallas Express, the pink slime subsidiary of Monty Bennett, a local hotel magnate with political aspirations and money to burn.
The Express is built on the good name of a Black newspaper that covered Dallas from 1892 to 1970. The current operation was founded four years ago. The history is covered pretty nicely in this Texas Observer article by Steven Monacelli from 2023. There’s also quite a bit more about Bennett and the Observer in this profile of Bennett detailing his involvement in the Dallas HERO astroturf group that was behind Props S, T, and U on the Dallas charter amendment ballot last November. (Bennett lives in Highland Park, of course, so he’s not even in the city of Dallas.) The gist of the 2024 article is that Bennett uses paid protestors to get at his enemies, then reports on the protests and complains that no other press outlet is covering them. Regular readers will also notice that Pete Marocco is mentioned in the 2024 article in connection with Dallas HERO, where he was parked for some of the time between his last stint at USAID and his current job destroying it.
The point here is that the Dallas Express, despite claiming to be a nonprofit and an objective news source, is anything but. It’s a vanity project of Monty Bennett and nothing you read there should be taken seriously other than as a signpost to what Bennett and his cronies want.