Vaya con Dios Diana "Dee Dee" Fuentes
The Investigative Reporters and Editors leader was fearless, kind and memorable. Her passing reminds us to celebrate the people whose lives and careers bring out the best in us and our profession.
Welcome back to Don’t Forget My Voice, a newsletter to help you navigate journalism’s chaotic and toxic maze. I’m Mc Nelly Torres, a longtime investigative journalist, editor, trainer and mentor.
There are times in life when you need to reflect and acknowledge the people whose life and career mirror the best of us, especially when they have made positive contributions to your life — whether professional or personal.
Life is full of surprises and sometimes they arrive in painful packages to remind us that life is fragile. Today, I’m using this space to celebrate Diana “Dee Dee” R. Fuentes’ life and legacy. She was a longtime journalist, editor, mentor, industry leader and a friend.
Dee Dee, as we all called her, died unexpectedly Friday while attending a Freedom of Information Act conference in Washington, D.C.
She was 67.
I was a young reporter covering education at the San Antonio Express-News in 2002 when I worked with Dee Dee, a passionate and kind night editor who handled my copy with care, respect, and trust.
Dee Dee would tap the seat next to her, a signal to sit next to her as she edited my copy on the screen. She would ask probing questions. And, every now and then, as I shared a funny nugget about the latest scandal with the Harlandale and Edgewood school boards, she would say “¡Hijole, Mc Nelly! Esa gente. (Yikes, Mc Nelly! These people.)”
She edited like a surgeon with a scalpel in surgery. She listened like the trusted confidante she was.
Dee Dee was my first editor of color — a Latina who was a talented journalist, fun to work with and understood the difficulties of navigating the Latino patriarchy as a female reporter tasked to cover and investigate some of the most corrupt school boards in San Antonio led mostly by men.
Dee Dee, a second generation Texan, spent her whole career working in numerous newspapers throughout Texas, but her death leaves behind a legacy across the Lone Star State and beyond.
Before our days together in San Antonio, I’d met Dee Dee in 2000 at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual conference in Houston. Dee Dee, then an editor at the Beaumont Enterprise, immediately began introducing me to NAHJ members.
Years later, when we worked in the same newsroom Dee Dee became a big sister to me and many of our colleagues.
She had a knack for numbers, which was fun when budget stories came across her desk. Her knowledge on open records laws and nonprofits bylaws was impressive.
If Dee Dee was serving on a journalism board, I trusted that her leadership and people’s skills would guide others on the right path.
With Dee Dee, I experienced a type of loving and caring leader that was rare in newspapers then, and now. She was the person who urged me to take time off to spend time with my children after my husband was deployed to the Iraq War in 2003.
One evening as she was editing a story I’d written about a school board meeting, she asked me about my children, Emmanuelli and Nelly, then 14 and 11, respectively.
My husband had been gone for months and was mostly in Tikrit, one of the most violent places during the war.
Dee Dee sensed my exhaustion.
She asked me, “When are you taking time off, Mc Nelly?”
“I don’t know, Dee Dee,” I said. “I want to save my vacation days for when David comes back home.”
She looked into my eyes and said, “Yo entiendo (I understand), Mc Nelly, pero (but) you need to take time off for your children. They need you, too.”
That was Dee Dee. Even with her Tejano Spanglish, she always made perfect sense. She was not just my editor, she was my friend, an older sister telling me that there were things in front of me that I needed to take care of. Spending time with my children was on top of the list.
This moment has always stayed with me all these years. It reminds me how alone I felt, carrying the anxiety of having a spouse in combat with no support system. I was in a strange city alone with my children and no family.
Dee Dee had noticed. She’d taken notes and she waited for the right moment, when we were alone, to gently tell me the obvious. I needed that.
Dee Dee left San Antonio before I did after she got the top editor’s job at the Laredo Morning Times, her hometown newspaper, and later editor/publisher of the Del Rio News-Herald.
We stayed in touch after I left Texas and moved to Florida. She became a close friend, mentor and confidant. She did return to the Express-News years later and held leadership positions until she retired in 2021.
As Dee Dee helped many journalists jump-start their careers, she cracked glass ceilings with fury. A friend and former colleague noted on Facebook: “So strong, so determined, so smart, and also very caring and kind. She had high standards but never demeaned anyone.”
In 2021, she became the first person of color to lead Investigative Reporters and Editors where she diversified the staff and expanded her reach in the international community, including in Latin America. But more importantly, she worked to ensure investigative reporting training was accessible to everybody.
She served in multiple journalism organizations in Texas over the years, including San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists, Texas Managing Editors, the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and Texas Press Association.
I was serving on the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ national board and proud to be onstage with her when she was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame in 2022. She had, too, served on the national board and was also a lifetime member.
Dee Dee always found time to visit with me during the conventions, even as busy as she was as IRE’s executive director. I’ve been active in this organization for decades, serving six years on the IRE board (first Latina elected to the board) and working with other members on committees.
Whether a brief chat during the mentors-mentee breakfast or outside the meeting spaces, I could always spot Dee Dee’s 5-foot frame and her signature dark curly hair. When she saw me, she always enveloped me in a hug.
We often texted each other about the industry’s constant uncertainty, the challenges we face as Latinas and the toxic spaces we encountered while volunteering with journalism organizations.
“Esa gente, Mc Nelly (Those people, Mc Nelly). I go through cycles with them. The basic work is important but some years I just have to step away,” she wrote me recently.
I totally appreciate that sentiment.
Dee Dee understood that the fight for diversity never ends and that a multiracial democracy has always been challenged every step of the way.
Today, we mourn a journalism giant who fiercely spoke truth to power and demanded inclusion. But she was also humble and caring; we can learn a lot from her. Dee Dee was someone who understood that democracy, like life, is fragile. That’s why she worked so tirelessly to open doors for other journalists, including those representing marginalized communities, through training, mentoring and education as a professor.
Dee Dee’s legacy has no borders. IRE’s board of directors recognized that. During an emergency board meeting Sunday, the board voted to nominate Dee Dee to be inducted in the Ring of Honor and start a training fund in her name.
The Ring of Honor, created in 2022, celebrates IRE members who have contributed significantly to the organization and to investigative journalism.
To support investigative training and the program named for Dee Dee, go here.
I am mourning Dee Dee, the journalist, leader and mentor. But today I am also mourning Dee Dee, my good friend, someone I described to Spanish speakers as un pan de dulce, a saying we use in Puerto Rico comparing a good person with sweet bread.
Vaya con Dios amiga. Godspeed my friend.
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Beautiful.
She was such a gift, both as a person and a mentor. I feel a real touch of envy. And sadness she passed too soon.