NorthPark Center in 1965 became what I believe is the first and certainly then the largest enclosed shopping mall in America, located near Loop 12 and North Central Expressway in North Dallas. For the July 4, 1965, Times Herald, I wrote about the push by stores to hire 3,000 people in the tight job market of that period, to staff the several hundred retail outlets, large and small. The mall’s opening was a mere 18 days away. This was a legitimate news story.
About that time Ken Smart walked around the city room handing reporters a piece of paper with three names scribbled on each sheet. They were the names of stores in NorthPark that had bought ads in a big special section the Times Herald would publish on July 21. We were to write feature stories about our assigned stores to appear in that special section.
Some of my love for the Dallas Times Herald died that afternoon. Felix McKnight, the executive editor and a man I admired very much, was allowing his staff to be publicists for the advertisers.
I was too young to bring perspective to all this. My father published special sections all the time at the Daily News-Telegram in Sulphur Springs, less than two hours away from Dallas. At the drop of a hat, he’d run one—for the Hopkins County Dairy Festival, for instance—and in that case run a dozen stories about dairy farmers and the county dairy industry. Ads from retailers congratulating the hundreds of dairy farmers in Hopkins County would surround these stories. The distinction that needs to be made is that my father didn’t run news articles about the advertisers.
I asked Ken what I was supposed to do. He said to call the stores, arrange to visit them in the next couple of days and find out what was interesting or unique about their businesses. So I did and wrote three stories which I took pains not to preserve in my scrapbook of clippings.
If the ethics of having your reporting staff write glowing stories about advertisers don’t smell good, what should a newspaper do? The ethical approach is to hire freelance writers to do what I and the other reporters did and then clearly label the whole presentation “Special Advertising Section.” The Times Herald didn’t want to go to that expense.
Now, decades later, I’ll tell you how I feel about this little affair. I am glad it happened, and glad it happened when it did. I needed to be knocked off my high horse, have my Goody Two Shoes scuffed. Life’s a struggle. You don’t always get to do what you think is the “right thing.” If needs be, you hold your nose. And if you can’t do that, maybe you need to think of another line of work, like house painting.
I was never again put in this position. But having it happen to me once, I appreciated the integrity my subsequent employers in the newspaper and magazine worlds displayed. And by the way, NorthPark Center is still there, more than half a century later. Wikipedia says it has 235 stores. Maybe Fred the retail store publicist gave it a little boost to get it going. What do you think?