Robert Wilonsky has literally changed Dallas. In consequence of his reporting, polluted sites have been cleaned up, nuisance properties torn down and historic landmarks preserved. For eight years at The Dallas Morning News, 21 years at the Dallas Observer before that, and a year at the Dallas Times Herald before that, Wilonsky wrote about his hometown like only a local can. He may possess the city’s thickest Rolodex of community leaders, elected officials, business tycoons, activists, do-gooders, barkeeps, gadflies and guardians of local lore.
And now, he’s coming back to The News.
Next month, subscribers will be reintroduced to Wilonsky’s deep reporting and lively storytelling when he res The News staff as editorial columnist.
Since 2020, Wilonsky has been dealing in some of the world’s most rare memorabilia as vice president of public relations and communications at Heritage Auctions. But the reporter itch wouldn’t go away.
“I never felt quite right calling myself a ‘former journalist,’” Wilonsky told me, “Because I’d been one my whole life — since high school, at least when I first wrote for the Dallas Times Herald — and always figured that’s how I’d go out. As a journalist. Not a used-to-be-one."
He called city columnist the best job in town and has a long list of things he’s missed about it: “Writing about all the ways Dallas was broken, the people who broke it, the people who suffered for it. Writing about Dallas' history, lamenting the pieces that kept disappearing, holding on to what could be spared. Turning a Friday-night council memo or an RFP into a headline. Making a Shingle Mountain out of one of Dallas' numerous environmental disasters.”
That is what readers can expect again, on a new page in a slightly different format.
Wilonsky is becoming The News' only full-time columnist on the opinion pages. He won’t be part of the newsroom’s coverage, and he won’t serve on the editorial board, which writes opinions in the institutional voice of the paper.
Wilonsky will focus on his own thing, which, as Editorial Page Editor Rudy Bush said, seems appropriate.
“Robert is a singular voice in Dallas journalism,” Bush said. “He loves his city like no one I’ve ever met, and his gift is telling stories that endure. I’m so happy for him and for our readers that he’s coming back to the work he was born to do.”
Wilonsky begins with us in early March, and you can look for his first column very quickly thereafter. We hope you are as excited as we are.
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