The El Paso Times Takes A Tougher Approach

The El Paso Times took the rare step Sunday of running a front-page editorial calling for the resignations of the five senior members of the El Paso Independent School District’s Board of Trustees.

It’s the latest in what appears to be a tougher El Paso Times since changing editors eight months ago.

ABC-7 sat down with new times editor Bob Moore on Monday for an exclusive interview with the longtime El Pasoan. Before returning to the Borderland from Colorado to take the job as executive editor of the Times last October, Moore was a journalist in El Paso for more than two decades, which helped shape a harder approach toward a tougher El Paso Times.

“I’ve always believed that journalists can’t be apart from the community, they have to be of the community,” said Moore. “As a journalist, I can say there’s no where I’d rather be. There is so much happening in the community that has frankly been under-covered for years.”

Moore has assembled quite a team at the Times, including a five-member investigative news team that has uncovered some huge stories. A key member of that team is 26-year Times veteran Diana Washington-Valdez.

“I think there’s an air of excitement,” Washington-Valdez said. “My philosophy has always been, if you have any kind of influence or anything, you should use it on behalf of those who are powerless and don’t have a voice and can’t advocate for themselves.”

It’s that kind of thinking that has made the Times team stand out during tough times.

“They’re really focused on telling the important stories of what’s happening in the community,” Moore said, “and not really just a surface thing but to really dive into documents, really find out what’s going on.”

The El Paso Times press has been rolling some real investigative pieces of late, including many of the articles leading up to the recent congressional election and this past weekend’s editorial on the front page, calling for five members of the EPISD school board to resign.

“No,” EPISD School Board President Isela Castanon-Williams told ABC-7’s Darren Hunt during Xtra on Sunday night when he asked if she would resign. “I have a huge concern with a critical time such as this and a campaign that is launched by an editorial board to further confuse the community.”

Moore said the move to put an editorial on the front page wasn’t designed to confuse the community, but rather to empower it.

“The school board isn’t going to resign because the El Paso Times ran editorial saying they should resign,” Moore said. “They will be under tremendous pressure to resign, however, if the community responds to that and makes their voice heard. There are people in positions of power in this community that have a vested interest in seeing that not happen. This wasn’t like we’re going out and shooting pictures of Lindsay Lohan and slapping them all over the newspaper. We’re going out and investigating important things that are happening in this community and we’re empowering the community to make a difference in their own lives. Some people are going to have a problem and i would suggest they look in the mirror.”

As for the coverage of the congressional race, Moore said the Silvestre Reyes camp was critical of the Times’ coverage. But he said he asked them a simple question, however, when they complained: “What did we get wrong?” He said the Reyes camp never had an answer for that and the Times never had to print a single correction.

As for the response to Sunday’s editorial on EPISD, Moore said it has been overwhelmingly positive.