After a reader asked the The Dallas Morning News’ feature that “tracks down answers” to look into how long the wait list for membership is at the 125-year-old club, the newspaper’s “trained journalists” produced this answer: The club declined to comment or explain its membership process, and its website says membership is invitation-only.
A standard feature of print and broadcast news organizations is a pledge to get answers to readers’ and viewers’ questions.
The Dallas Morning News touts its version of the service as “Curious Texas,” described as “an ongoing project [for which] the idea is simple: You have questions, and our journalists are trained to track down answers.”
So when a reader asked if “Curious Texas” could get an answer to this question: “How long is the wait list for membership at the Dallas Country Club,” the staff’s trained journalists went to work and came back with this response:
“The Dallas Country Club declined to comment on the size of its waiting list or to explain its membership process, citing the club’s status as a private entity.”
The “Curious Texas” report also included some history and description of the club and included this “finding”: “[T]he process for becoming a member is not widely known. A statement on [the club’s] website says membership is invitation-only and that each member is ‘subject to the normal membership process in accordance with the Club’s bylaws.’”
The rest of the report, which included a long-range photo of the back of the Dallas CC clubhouse that a Morning News staff photographer took from outside the property, noted emphatically that “some things about the club’s membership history are known” and then cited old history pertaining to how the club, which was founded in 1896, maintained an all-white membership for many years.
It then concluded with a non sequitur that noted that “while it’s not a country club, Dallas National Golf Club[‘s] wait to join is more than a year, according to club manager David Denley.”
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