Why bother? None of the many potential choices listed in this editorial has a chance if The Dallas Morning News again chooses a symbolic Texan of the Year instead of a person who individually had significant impact, for good or bad, on Texas, the nation or the world.
Time magazine was rightly criticized for its choice of a collective "you" as its person of the year. The Dallas Morning News' choice for Texan of the Year was in the same vein. In effect, its recognition went to all the Texan families who have loved ones serving in Iraq. To represent these thousands of Texans, The Dallas Morning News chose a single father, who, in the newspaper's own words, "became an unintended symbol of unspeakable loss and grief after losing two sons who went off to war."
Symbolic choices are all well and good, but I suspect most readers expect and prefer a single, real person be singled out for Texan of the Year because of his own actions, not because he's a particularly inspiring representative of a class of people. A debate over whether the right person was named or not is healthy and fun, but debating whether symbols or collective pronouns are suitable choices is just a waste of an opportunity to discuss the important events of the past year. I won't be holding my breath waiting to learn who (or what) The Dallas Morning News decides to recognize in 2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment