Fellow publisher Cheryl Smith: “This is a tremendous loss to our industry and the millions who look to the Black Press for authentic coverage.”
FORT WORTH, Texas — In the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex it’s been a tough week for a certain selection of family, friends, and media colleagues who are mourning the loss of a longtime community voice that helped shape how stories are told and shared across North Texas’ Black community.
According to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner, Jill Darden passed away at her Fort Worth residence on April 24th just after 5:00pm. The cause of death is still pending.
Darden, 52, was the founder and publisher of Fort Worth Black News, a newspaper she launched in 1997 at just 23 years old, with her mother, Chris Lott.
Since its founding, the publication has focused on highlighting positive stories, community achievements and issues often overlooked by larger mainstream outlets. Through consistent coverage of local businesses, cultural events, and neighborhood concerns, Fort Worth Black News has become a trusted source of information for many residents.
Darden, a respected and well-known journalist and media entrepreneur, spent decades building the paper into a platform that highlights Black voices in North Texas. Her work earned recognition from community organizations and leaders across the region, underscoring the publication’s impact and longevity.
“Jill was a founder and longtime publisher who held down Black press efforts and coverage of our communities in Fort Worth for many years,” Eva D. Coleman, Vice President-Print of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), said. “Her impact will be sorely missed.”
Coleman, a past president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Association of Black Journalists (DFW/ABJ), has long been a close colleague of Darden’s.
For years, Fort Worth Black News operated as part of a broader network of Black-owned media outlets serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area, including The Dallas Examiner, Dallas Post Tribune, and Dallas Weekly. Together, these publications have played a critical role in documenting stories, amplifying voices, and preserving the cultural and historical record of Black communities across the metroplex.
“This is a tremendous loss to our industry and the millions who look to the Black Press for authentic coverage,” said fellow publisher Cheryl Smith. “Jill’s contributions to journalism are well documented and respected. She understood her assignment and carried it out with professionalism, integrity, and commitment.”
Smith owns and operates Texas Metro News, Garland Journal and I Messenger News. She believes Darden’s impact will be long lasting in North Texas and beyond.
“As the Black Press prepares for its bicentennial next year, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) is saddened by not only the loss of our fourth publisher this year, and the closing of two newspapers, but current efforts to silence our voices and discourage financial gain by attacking those who support DEI,” Smith said.
Other DFW leaders have also responded to Darden’s unexpected passing.
“Jill Darden was a highly respected community leader and journalist. Jill used her voice and her platform to inform, uplift, and represent our community with intention. I saw Jill last month during early voting, she was still engaged and present. My heart is with her son, Jiles, and all who loved her,” Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa L. Simmons said.
Fort Worth community leader Cory Session said Darden’s commitment to telling the stories of people in the Black community was born from the work of her mother.
“Chris Lott, publisher of the Wichita Falls Black News (and) as the founder, owner, and publicist of the Fort Worth Black News. She was committed to elevating local, national and under told stories about people and things that affected the black community,” Session said. “She would once do an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Her contributions to journalism and storytelling are to be emulated. Jill Darden will be sorely missed.”
Nearly three decades after its launch, Darden’s work with the Fort Worth Black News remains rooted in the same mission she started with, a mission expected to continue in her passing: ensuring that the stories of her community are told, seen and remembered.