Good News Is No News

By Patrick Williams Thu., Apr. 13 2006 at 4:51 PM

A local company is investing $50 million in a new plant in southern Dallas. Let's see, how can we make that seem like a bad thing? Hmm...

See, the trouble is that the company is Belo Corp., which announced the groundbreaking for the plant on Langdon Road in a press release that can be found here. Since we're talking about The Dallas Morning News's owners, the Observer must find a way to pee on it. It's a moral obligation.

Tough one. Fifty million invested in a needy area. Jobs and stuff. Oh, oh! We know! It's getting city and county tax abatements. Must be something fishy there. No, Belo spokesperson Nancy Del Regno says, it's just the standard 90 percent, 10-year property tax abatement available to any business that invests enough and creates enough jobs in an enterprise zone.

The plant, she says, will package pre-paid ad inserts and pre-printed sections for the Sunday paper. Who knows? Having inserts bundled separately may make the rest of the Sunday paper--you know, the news part--easier to find among the 10 pounds of ad fliers that hit the sidewalk on Sundays. Damn, that's a good thing too.

OK, Belo, you win this time. Hey, we wonder if that Trinity toll road proposed by the city and favored by the DMN will run near the new plant. Good question. We'll get Schutze right on that. --Patrick Williams

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