Though journalism remains an unlicensed profession, and standards do vary across news outlets, some rules are very broadly accepted. The most common reference point is the code of ethics of the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ), which compiles guidelines that aim to keep practitioners honest, minimize unintended harm, and build trust.
For example, journalists are supposed to write under their real names. They are supposed to verify information before reporting it, and they should take particular care when dealing with juveniles. For a news outlet to report unconfirmed criminal allegations against a minor under a fake name—again, for example—would be atypical at best, if not a blatant violation of journalistic ethics.
Last month, that is exactly what happened when The Dallas Express published an article about a son of state Representative Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat.
For those unfamiliar, The Dallas Express is an unusual news outlet in a number of ways. Formed in 2021, the nonprofit repurposed the brand of a historic progressive Black newspaper that went defunct in the 1970s. It purports to produce spin-free, fact-based news, though it has consistently operated as a right-wing outlet. The Express’ own ethics code states that the outlet “does not use anonymous sources,” but it does not specify whether it uses fictitious bylines. Its founder, publisher, and board member, Monty Bennett, is a Republican megadonor and hotelier who lives in the Dallas area, and its current CEO, Chris Putnam, is a former Republican congressional candidate and ex-Tarrant County GOP officer. The Express sometimes discloses Bennett’s ties to local political and business issues in relevant articles and sometimes does not, including in articles about astroturf advocacy groups that Bennett helped seed.
Early on, the Express website was found to share technical infrastructure with a network of partisan pay-to-play websites that purport to produce local news. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit—a tax status that comes with a prohibition on political campaigning—the outlet has run advertisements for Republican candidates.
X post from Bennett criticizing other media (Courtesy/Monty Bennett X)
On March 16, The Dallas Express published an article reporting allegations about one of Wu’s two sons. In addition to being a state rep, Wu is the House’s Democratic caucus leader.
Titled “Controversial Texas Rep. Gene Wu’s Son’s ‘Concerning’ Behavior At Prominent Private School Reported To DPS After Knife Incident,” the article was quickly spread by Republican politicians and right-wing influencers on social media. “Denaturalize and deport,” wrote Bo French, former chairman of the Tarrant County GOP and current primary runoff candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), in a post on X sharing the article. Yahoo News, which has a syndication partnership with The Dallas Express, distributed the article to its readers.
The article cites unspecified reports and unnamed “law enforcement officials” in reporting that Wu’s son, a minor who attends a private school in the Houston area, allegedly showed an approximately 10-inch plastic knife to classmates after school hours, among other supposed behavioral issues.
The author of the article is listed as “J Galt,” the only staff member on The Dallas Express organizational chart who lacks a headshot. According to a former Express employee, who worked there when the name “J Galt” began appearing on articles and who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal due to signing a non-disclosure agreement, the byline does not correspond to a real person.
“Galt was a fake name we could use on the byline when we got assigned stories we didn’t want to write,” the staffer told the Texas Observer in late March. “It started when Chris Putnam was CEO, but there wasn’t an announcement or anything about it. It kind of just started happening.”
John Galt is a central character named in the opening line of Atlas Shrugged, the well-known novel by Ayn Rand, a favorite writer of many on the political right.
Bennett and Putnam did not respond to the Observer’s requests for comment for this article. Wu and his wife, journalist Miya Shay, also did not provide comment.
“The Dallas Express ‘news story’ about Texas state Representative and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Gene Wu’s juvenile son does not pass the ethical sniff test, from its newsworthiness to its use of anonymous sources and a fake byline,” Dan Axelrod, a journalist and professor who chairs the SPJ’s ethics committee, told the Observer.
Two other professors echoed Axelrod’s concerns.
“The idea of writing under a pseudonym is really problematic,” said the University of Texas at Austin’s John Schwartz, who described the article as “an incredible hit job” as well as “gossip and sleaze.”
Schwartz said there are certain exceptions when author pseudonyms might be permitted, such as when journalists live in dangerous places where identifying them could pose imminent security risks, in which cases the reason should be disclosed. No disclosure or justification is present in the Express article.
“This appears to be using a pseudonym because they’re doing something underhanded,” Schwartz said. “For a reader to trust you, they have to know who you are. And to create a fake name, as opposed to a no-byline, adds another level of subterfuge to this.”
Texas A&M journalism professor Mariano Castillo also questioned the article’s reliance on anonymous sources, which is prohibited by the Express’ own code of ethics.
“The best practice when characterizing unnamed and anonymous sources is to always be as specific as possible,” said Castillo, who told the Observer the article is “problematic” and raises serious ethical questions. “In this story … a lot of stuff gets attributed simply to officials.”
SPJ’s ethics code states that anonymity should only be used when information can be obtained in no other way, the source faces danger, and an explanation is given (as the Observer did above with the former Express employee). In practice, some outlets are more liberal in granting anonymity.
In addition to unnamed law enforcement sources, the Express article cites unspecified “reports” from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Houston Regional Intelligence Service Center, which consolidates data from local, state, and federal agencies. Neither responded to the Observer’s requests for comment for this story. The Observer has filed related public information requests.
Various laws typically shield minors from the release of educational and criminal records outside exceptional circumstances. Moreover, The Dallas Express did not report that Wu’s son had been charged with any crime.
The Express article effectively identifies the juvenile, who can be one of only two individuals, through circumstantial information. The Express’ own code of ethics states that “Juvenile suspects can only be identified when they have been charged as adults.”
Axelrod said: “Despite not naming the child or the school, the prominence of the student’s father and The Dallas Express’s mention of the child’s attendance at a Houston-area private school are enough to identify the student relatively easily.”
The Express article also superfluously states, in two separate instances, that both Wu and his wife—a Houston TV reporter—were born in China. Wu, a combative online personality himself, has long been the subject of racist and xenophobic attacks from the political right.
The second half of the article, under the subheading “Other Controversies Surrounding Wu,” features an X post from French, the RRC candidate, accusing the Houstonian lawmaker of being a “puppet” of the Chinese Communist Party.
Mudslinging is common in politics, of course, but “There’s been an unwritten rule forever that if you’re in the middle of a political fight, leave the kids out,” Schwartz said.
In breaking that rule last month, the Express also seems to have broken with its own purported policies and that of the journalism profession—an industry fighting for its credibility against a rising tide of misinformation—broadly speaking.
“No ethical journalist would mistake the Dallas Express reporting on Rep. Wu’s son as anything even remotely resembling fair, newsworthy journalism,” Axelrod said. “[It] appears to be a hit piece masquerading as journalism … [an] example of a news outlet with a history of distorted and vindictive reportage training its sights on the child of a state representative it opposes.”
The post ‘Gossip and Sleaze’: Dallas Express Smears State Rep’s Son Under Fake Byline appeared first on The Texas Observer.
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