A flat tire on I-30 changed everything for Derrick M. Collins. Stranded outside Fort Worth in 2011, he struck up a conversation with the tow truck driver who spent twenty minutes explaining how the city’s rapid expansion was pricing longtime residents out of neighborhoods their families had lived in for generations. Derrick, then a general assignment reporter at KTVT-TV in Dallas, filed that conversation away. Six months later, he’d produced a four-part series on displacement in the Stop Six neighborhood that earned him his first Texas Associated Press Broadcasters Award.

What He Covers Now

Derrick joined newsoffortworth.com in 2019 after eight years in television news and three years covering municipal government for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He reports on housing policy, urban development, and the evolving economic landscape of Tarrant County. His 2022 investigation into code enforcement disparities across Fort Worth ZIP codes led to a City Council review of inspection practices and was cited in a subsequent Dallas Morning News editorial.

He’s particularly focused on how infrastructure decisions—highway expansions, transit routes, flood mitigation projects—reshape neighborhoods long before construction begins. His ongoing series “Before the Bulldozers” tracks proposed developments and their projected community impact, giving residents information while they still have time to engage with the process.

Background & Approach

Derrick holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of North Texas, where he interned at the Denton Record-Chronicle during the 2008 financial crisis—an experience that shaped his interest in how policy decisions compound over years before becoming visible crises. He completed an Investigative Reporters and Editors data journalism workshop in 2017, skills he now applies to mapping development patterns and analyzing public records.

Originally from Waxahachie, Derrick moved to the Fort Worth area permanently after his wife, a pediatric nurse, took a position at Cook Children’s Medical Center. They live in Riverside with their two kids, and Derrick can often be found on Saturday mornings at the Clearfork Farmers Market, where he’s convinced the breakfast tacos are underrated.

Stay Connected:
Derrick@newsoffortworth.com