Shaun Jex assumes editor position at Citizens’ Advocate newspaper

It was an ordinary day in January 2002 when Jane Moore ran out of the Citizens’ Advocate building and down to the Dairy Queen on Southwestern Boulevard. She entered to find billionaire Mark Cuban serving ice cream to the citizens of Coppell.

“He had made some kind of comment denigrating to Dairy Queen workers and in order to make it up he was going to come in to the Coppell Dairy Queen,” Moore, a writer at The Advocate, said. “We had to run over and take pictures, then run down and beg them to hurry up and process our pictures of Mark Cuban really quick so we could go to press.”

Since 1984, The Advocate has covered stories from the lighthearted to the serious, all while remaining a constant force of free speech in the community.

However, on Jan. 13, a change in leadership became official at the independent newspaper as The Advocate’s founder and Publisher Jean Murph hired writer Shaun Jex as editor of the paper.

“He’s worked with me over several years,” Murph said. “I found the exact person that I thought would continue with the philosophy of what the paper should be.”

Murph’s philosophy originates back to her purpose for starting The Advocate, to be a filter between the people and city government.

“The main reason was to make sure the government was open and honest and that the people had a voice,” Murph said.

Since then, The Advocate has been delivered to the walkways of homes and the entrances of stores in Coppell on a weekly basis, filled with many stories written by a few reporters.

Jex’s byline can be found on numerous articles per issue, displaying the influence he’s had on the paper since joining it just two years ago.

“I had been writing a book about Coppell history and I had extra content left over after the book was finished,” Jex said. “I started doing a regular column in The Advocate telling those stories, which led to me doing some other freelance work for them. That just kind of grew from there”

From his time at The Advocate, Jex has come to understand some of the challenges a small town paper faces.

“We’re trying to do what we do on a shoestring, which means picking up extra stories when we need to, covering multiple beats, but it’s great because there aren’t a lot of small town papers left that are independent,” Jex said. “Putting in the extra work in order to assure that is worth it.”

His vision for the paper does not stray far from Murph’s.

“The focus is really on covering city politics, what was going on at the schools, making sure people stayed informed with what was happening, so there was a lot of discrepancy for the citizens,” Jex said. “That’s always been the case and that’s the case while I’ve been there as well”

Moore has gotten to know Murph and Jex over her 20 years at the paper.

“[Ms. Murph] is a very steady force in the paper,” Moore said. “She’s a very fair person. She has a way of getting down to the kernel of the truth… With Shaun Jex, I think he really, really loves to write. He’s very interested in history, and he’s very interested in Coppell. That’s really what motivates him.”

Moore got her start at the paper after submitting a piece for publication, only to be tracked down by Murph a year later. Since then she has seen the impact The Advocate has had and the changes it has undergone, particularly in technology.

“As far as reporting, it went from driving the stories down there first with a piece of paper then with a floppy disk,” Moore said. “Everything was pasted up on a board, then we finally went to email. I’ve seen the paper go from a huge change in technology and it was really a struggle and stress for some of us to figure it out.”

Regardless of the means she uses, to Moore being at The Advocate has always been about the passion.

“It’s the love of telling the story, even if the story might be a school board meeting, because no matter what the situation there’s always a story there and I think that’s the core of it,” Moore said.

As far as changes for the future of The Advocate, Jex is focusing in on a growing trend- social media.

“As a small town paper, we really have to work hard to stay vital, to stay independent, because that is really important to us but we are going to try to do some things at some point expanding more into social media and trying to make our work more accessible through those avenues as well because more people are getting news that way,” Jex said.

Murph will continue to be an important part of The Advocate, a paper that has gone from a force of change to a cornerstone in the community.

“That would be one of my best memories, getting to go to the council meetings every two weeks, watching government in action,” Murph said. “Another one is the role the newspaper has had, and trying to help keep the history of Coppell alive. It’s been a very meaningful job, the most meaningful job that I think I could have ever had.