On December 30, NewsBusters voiced its displeasure with the Dallas Morning News naming the illegal immigrant as its 2007 Texan of the Year. As it turns out, Morning News readers were just as offended.
In fact, according to Saturday's "Ask the Editor" piece on the subject, 95 percent of readers that sent in letters or e-mail messages were highly negative about the paper's choice (emphasis added throughout, h/t Tim Graham):
By midday Friday, some 700 reader comments had been posted on the Editorial Board's blog, DallasMorningViews. We received roughly 200 letters to the editor.
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We've engaged with readers individually via e-mail and telephone and in groups on the Web and over the airwaves. But let's be candid: 95 percent of all that reaction to our choice was negative. Readers we heard from were angry, insulted, in disbelief that we'd do such a thing. Some cancelled their newspaper subscriptions.
I bet. Makes me wonder how many more will cancel after reading some of the deplorable excuses for the paper's actions:
The opposition seemed to focus around three main points. One we heard over and over was, "How in the world could you designate people who are here illegally as 'Texans'?"
A fair point, and one worthy of discussion. We've chosen to interpret "Texan" rather generically, colloquially. To us, it means somebody who lives here, or who has lived here, or who has spent considerable time here - somebody who's affected Texas in some major way.
To many people, "Texan" requires a much more elevated definition. Some argue one cannot be a Texan if not born in this great state. Others argue that, at the very least, a Texan of the Year ought to be a legal resident of the state.
Those are fine definitions. But look at our past designees - President Bush in 2003, Karl Rove in 2004, the city of Houston in 2005 and Roy Velez in 2006. Neither of the first two lived in Texas at the time of their designation. Neither of them and only a segment of the third designee (Houston) was born in Texas.
Amazing. So, the fact that President Bush and Karl Rove weren't born in Texas, or living there at the time of receiving this paper's "honor," puts them on equal footing with illegal immigrants? Didn't these two have a huge impact on Texas politics when they did live there, and weren't they considered legal residents of the state?
Honestly, what kind of an analogy is this?
But, the illogic on display worsened when the editors equated the President with illegal immigrants for a second time:
It wasn't that we were ducking the issue of illegal immigration, good or bad. We've opined on that topic many times before (more on that in a moment); condemning or glorifying wasn't the point of this essay or this designation. The point was to describe the person - or, in this case, the group - that has roiled this state and nation economically and emotionally more than anyone else. It was to describe a social phenomenon unmatched in recent memory and to draw attention to the urgent need for change.
A couple of our previous Texans of the Year bear this out. If you read our essay on President Bush in 2003, it's clear that we weren't recognizing him because we agreed with all that he stood for. We recognized him because his decision to take this country to war had a larger impact on the state - and the world - than any other Texan (generic definition) we could come up with.
Fascinating line of defense, wouldn't you agree? I guess that's why these folks went into journalism and not law.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
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