The Dallas Morning News is in hiring mode, finally posting a help-wanted ad for its top editorial position of Executive Editor.

The slot has been empty since the 2020 departure of previous editor Mike Wilson, who resigned after nearly six years — and two months after the newspaper staff formed a union, which was surely not connected in any way to his resignation.

Wilson said at the time he was recharging. He subsequently joined his daughter's employer, the New York Times, as a deputy editor in Sports.

The DMN has the position posted on Linked In, which seems very egalitarian, right next to back-waiter jobs at Eataly. No headhunter firms?

The job description says that "the ideal candidate will approach this unique era in journalism with a sense of optimism and a willingness to make bold decisions to help us reach our digital destination."

The paper currently has a total of 48,903 digital subscribers — almost as many as our CultureMap Digest daily email! Just kidding. But not nearly as many as the NYT, which has more than 6 million digital subscribers.

In three days, the job has only three applicants. The field is still wide open.

According to a post on the union's website, Dallas Morning News publisher Grant Moise emailed the newsroom in February and said he was gathering "internal and external feedback" to determine what the paper needed. (As the post notes, that feedback search did not include members of the Dallas News Guild, who go on to list their priorities such as accountability, diversity, and inclusion.)

Seems like bad timing, right on the heels of the company's reported loss of $6.9 million for the year, as well as its plan to initiate a reverse stock split, which companies do to try and boost their stock price.

The DMN is not the only Texas media entity posting an open position: NPR is hiring a statewide managing editor for what they say is an "innovative new system of regional news hubs designed to reshape the journalism landscape."

This would be a collaboration between KERA in Dallas, KUT in Austin, Houston Public Media, and Texas Public Radio in San Antonio.

They're forming an entity in which they connect those cities into one news organization, and they're calling it innovative.

There is a news organization that already connects Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio: CultureMap, which connects not only those four cities, but Fort Worth, too. C'mon, NPR don't leave out Fort Worth.

Anyway, that position has drawn two applicants in three days. It lists lots of requirements and says it's based at KERA in Dallas, without mentioning that half the people who work there are ex-Dallas Morning News Arts Department oldsters; the new hire will get to see what it was like working at the DMN in 2001.