Wednesday morning, The Washington Post’s Dennis Drabelle opened his mail to find a rather large letter informing him of an error in one of his stories. “Based on our research,” wrote Mrs. Reed’s fifth-grade class, “the Titanic hit the iceberg shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912.”
Drabelle, a contributing editor for the Post’s Book World, had written in an April roundup of Titanic books that the collision occurred on April 15, but that was the date that the ship sank. And these fifth-graders pay attention to details like that. (Future copy editors, if such jobs exist in 20 years?)
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- “Our favorite correction letter ever, from 5th graders @ Burning Tree E.S. in Bethesda MD,” tweeted Ron Charles.
“Isn’t that letter adorable?” said Ron Charles, a Post editor who tweeted a photo of Drabelle with the letter. “Most of the correction letters begin with some kind of irate statement, ‘Isn’t anyone reading the paper over there?’ This was a nice change of pace.”
Although the letter is dated April 16, the teacher just sent it a few days ago, along with pictures of her students. Drabelle wrote a letter back to her. “I said something like, ‘It’s pleasant to be corrected by such diligent and friendly students.’ ”
The letter doesn’t actually request a correction, but Charles and Drabelle said by phone that it will be fixed. They may also publish photos of the children and a reproduction of the letter in KidsPost, the children’s section of the paper.
Here’s the text of the letter:
April 16, 2012
Dear Mr. Drabelle,
We are fifth grade students at Burning Tree ES in Besthesda, Maryland and we have been studying the Titanic’s tragic sinking and the lives of some of the survivors. In your April 15, 2012 edition of The Washington Post, you stated that the Titanic hit the iceberg on April 15, 1912. Based on our research, the Titanic hit the iceberg shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Reed’s fifth grade class
The Post corrected the story online and also wrote its own account of receiving the letter. Ironically, the story about the correction letter required its own correction, which reads:
A previous version of this post incorrectly stated the date the article was published online.
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