Oral History Interview with Mollie Finch Belt, November 5, 2018 Page: 4
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publication that was a tabloid insert in the Dallas Examiner every week until the recession came
about. When the recession came about they had to cut, you know? Black people are always-
we're always the first ones to get cut. So, funding was cut, and I never could really get the
funding up to a level. Because I would pay high school journalism students stipends-it was like
a part time job and they would actually-we were located then, in another office, and I had a
whole back room that was a Future Speak room. And I had their furniture. I had um-they
would come every day after school and they had a director and they publish that newspaper
every week. So, when I was talking to her, she said, "You know the way you're talking so
passionately about the paper and all, it's really your vision now." So, you know, it became my
vision because basically, I sold the paper better than anybody else. My husband and I, we would
go to New York to the ad agencies once a year in the fall, but everywhere I went, I could, you
know, talk about the paper better than anybody else.
Jasmine: So, what would you say ultimately is your vision for the paper?
Mollie: The vision is the same as it was. To actually provide-to publish a quality newspaper
that has news about African Americans and news that African Americans are interested in.
There's a void in our community for our voices to be heard. Our voices, being African American.
And, even though you have diversity in mainstream newspapers the editors cut out so much. And
so, we need-a newspaper survives off of advertising revenue. So, we need-it's a constant
struggle to get sufficient advertising revenue to hire full time reporters, provide benefits. My
vision is really to have a reporter, like, who's grounded in Dallas City Hall-that's a full-time
job, you know. One who's grounded in county government, one, certainly, who is grounded in
Dallas Independent School District of education. And so, at one time I had full time reporters.
But they were-we always attract the young, the inexperienced. It's like a training ground for
reporters, you know, so I never had where I could have a reporter you know, in each one of those
entities. And then somebody to do, you know, kind of like current events-what's going on. You
get all this stuff that the mainstream paper does not publish about what organizations are doing
[what]. And you know, stuff like that is important too. But in order to have a staff like that, you
have to have money to pay them decent salaries. That's one reason why my father started the
Examiner. He always had professional journalists working on staff. And so many of our
newspapers, and I'm very active in the National Newspaper Publishers Association-so many of
our newspapers do not have professional journalists working on staff. We still have professional
journalists, but we don't have full time. They are contract. It took us-we moved in this
building-my husband died three years ago, and I tried my best to lease this building to another
lawyer, because it's really a law office. They all want to do work in a high rise, you know, and all
that kind of stuff. So, his paralegal stayed here doing freelance work and finally, me and my
production manager-because we were then, located in the Oak Cliff Tower, and that elevator
would stop, and it was just you know-
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Johnson, Jasmine C.; Young, Kelcei; Weplls, Amani; Moore, Briana & Belt, Mollie, 1943-. Oral History Interview with Mollie Finch Belt, November 5, 2018, text, November 5, 2018; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1137529/m1/4/: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism.