Parent company of Dallas Morning News seeks name change

DALLAS (AP) — The parent company of The Dallas Morning News announced Tuesday that it wants to change its name from A.H. Belo Corporation, citing its founder’s association with the Confederacy.

A.H. Belo’s chairman, president and CEO, Robert W. Decherd, said during a conference call that the company will ask shareholders in May to approve changing its name to DallasNews Corporation, The Dallas Morning News reported.

A. H. Belo, who started the company in 1842, volunteered with the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of colonel.

“We are keenly aware that the relationship of our company’s name to a person who figured prominently in the Confederate Army is the source of discomfort, even pain, for many of our fellow citizens,” Decherd said. “And that is intolerable to the leaders of this enterprise.”

Decherd said the company wants to embrace “the social justice movement underway in America.”

He emphasized the company’s role as a civic leader in setting “high standards for diversity, equity and inclusion,” including last summer, when The News promoted Leona Allen, a Dallas native and longtime editor, to deputy publisher, making her one of the highest-ranking Black female executives in the newspaper industry.