Open Letter to Ellen DeGeneres and CBS News: Fort Worth, not Dallas!

Wow. How great that you both highlighted my adopted hometown Fort Worth on TV last week. Unfortunately, you got it wrong. And not just wrong, but wrong wrong.

When you snub Fort Worth, even unintentionally, and favor Dallas, it stings. It’s a sore more than a century old. And that’s what you poked at.

You’re lucky, though. The guy that would have pummeled you for this – Amon G. Carter Sr. – the master showman who kept the Fort Worth-Dallas rivalry on fire for half a century, well, he’s gone. Been dead for 64 years.

Amon Carter, in the light-colored coat, did not fancy stepping across the county line, if he didn’t have to.

Since the former Fort Worth media mogul isn’t around, I’ll fly the flag on his behalf. I just finished writing a play about Carter and a book to go with it (AMON! The Ultimate Texan), so I can speak for him a bit.

Ellen, how wonderful that you donated $50,000 to Como Elementary School, but you said on The Ellen Show that Como is “near Dallas.”

Ouch. Como is in the heart of Fort Worth.

Fort Worth is a 45-minute drive (on a good day) from Dallas. Fort Worth – sit down for this – is the 15th largest city in America. Larger than most cities that have Major League baseball teams. Our nickname is not “Near Dallas.”

And CBS News, dangit! What were all y’all thinkin’ when on your Saturday morning national broadcast you said the fabulous Amon Carter Museum of American Art is in Dallas?

Forget Amon Carter, you’re just lucky that his daughter, Ruth Carter Stevenson who built this landmark museum, isn’t around either. She would have swatted you with a rolled up Picasso.

The Carter family would never ever have built their beloved museum in that other place.

At least you corrected the online version, moving the museum back to Fort Worth in your narration. Thank you.

The museum, by the way, is free and always will be, per Amon’s will. However, if he ever were going to charge anyone, it would have been folks from Dallas …. and TV people who can’t get it right.

If you want to learn more about Amon and Fort Worth (and I know you do), visit AmonPlay.com.

Y’all come back now.

Most sincerely,

Dave Lieber

(Ironically, a Dallas Morning News columnist)