After a guilty verdict was handed down in Dallas' high-profile political corruption trial last month, one juror told an Observer reporter that the jurors may have discussed -- or overhead outside discussion about -- some pieces of evidence during the trial, both of which are against the rules of the court. That revelation led one of the defense attorneys to request a new trial, which led the judge to request the interview tape from the Observer. The paper said no, drawing a snippy rebuke from the judge, who wrote that the alt-weekly was citing "some vague constitutional protection unknown to this Court" in its refusal to give her the tape. "But 'round here we call that 'vague constitutional protection' the First Amendment," notes Observer managing editor Patrick Williams, adding: "We're not in the business of becoming an adjunct to the government."
The Dallas Bar Association honors the best legal news reporting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with its annual Stephen Philbin Awards; this year the Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze and Robert Wilonsky took home an award in the new category of Electronic Media News/Feature Article for their live-blogging of a City Hall corruption trial, which the association says "gave readers a play-by-play account of each day's courtroom activities."
The Houston Press and Fort Worth Weekly were the big winners in this year's awards competition sponsored by the Houston Press Club. The Press won a total of 16 awards. In the big papers division, it finished first for Business Story and General Commentary/Criticism, while staff writer Craig Malisow was named Print Journalist of the Year (his colleague Chris Vogel was runner-up.) In the art and web divisions open to all papers, the Press took home first-place awards for Feature Story, Hard News Reporting, Photo Package and Sports Photo. The Weekly, competing in the small papers division, won a total of 11 awards, including first-place finishes in Feature Story, Investigative Reporting, Politics/Government, Sports Story and Business Story (which it swept). Also in the large division, the Dallas Observer won four awards, including firsts for Feature Story, Sports Story; in the small division, San Antonio Current took home three awards.
The alt-weekly won this year's Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in the non-daily category for its story on the growing heroin epidemic among Long Island's youth -- a story the judges called "the epitome of public service journalism." The story -- "Long Highland" -- also won the AltWeekly Award for Public Service last week in Tucson. The Dallas Observer and New Times Broward-Palm Beach received honorable mentions in the Casey Medal competition, which recognizes "exemplary reporting on children and families in the U.S."
A Father's Day event at Addison Airport was offering flights on the vintage aircraft B-24 Liberator, and Danny Hurley was there shooting for the Observer with permission from the plane owner and pilot. But then his day was cut short. "Waiting for the plane to take off, I was surprised by the Addison police," Hurley tells the Observer. "An officer unholstered his gun, then handcuffed and held me until Homeland Security cleared my name." Hurley wasn't arrested, but an officer told him that he did break federal law by being on the tarmac, and that a report will be sent to Homeland Security. The pilot told Hurley the airport was also shut down for "a short while."
Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey has been awarded the 2009 MOLLY National Journalism Prize for a series about immigration. The awards, presented annually by the Texas Observer, recognize great American journalism and honor the memory of former Observer editor Molly Ivins. "Molly would have been thrilled at the scores of worthy entries and taken a little amused pride that this year's winner is a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper where she began reporting as a summer intern," Observer CEO and publisher Carlton Carl says.
Julie Lyons, the evangelical Christian who stepped down as Observer editor in late 2007, has written a book on her religious transformation. Holy Roller was released yesterday by WaterBrook Press, a subsidiary of Random House. In an interview with Beliefnet, Lyons, who wrote a popular and at-times controversial "Bible Girl" column for the alt-weekly, talks about the book and what she's been up to since leaving the Observer. Besides writing, she says she's spent more time in ministry. "I go door to door in the streets of South Dallas with an evangelism team," she says. "We're out there to win souls for Jesus, plain and simple."
Brad Tyer, the Observer's managing editor, is one of 19 journalists selected for the prestigious Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan for the upcoming academic year. He will focus on environmental justice issues. Each fellow receives a stipend of $70,000, supported by gifts from foundations, news organizations and individuals.
The Observer is one of eight nominees in two 2009 Utne Independent Press Awards categories: Best Writing and Political Coverage. Winners will be announced during the Magazine Publishers of America's Independent Magazine Group conference (May 17-19) and published in the July-August issue of Utne Reader.
In the eighteenth installment of this year's "How I Got That Story" series, Jake Bernstein talks about his story for The Texas Observer that revealed the state's governor had amassed a huge database of information on Texas' citizens without them knowing it. The story came to Bernstein, who is now a reporter at ProPublica, via a tip, and sparked immediate reactions. "It was one of the most instantaneous responses I've ever had to a story," Bernstein says. "Literally, within hours of us posting it on our website, people were talking about it on the Texas House floor." He explains to Angelica Herrera how he pieced together the story, his opinion on anonymous sources, and the ultimate impact of his story.
