New York Times publishes '12 Years a Slave' story correction 161 years later
The New York Times printed a correction on Tuesday to an article about Solomon Northup, subject of the Oscar-winning film "12 Years a Slave," after a Twitter user noticed the paper had misspelled his name — in 1853.
Rebecca Skloot, the eagle-eyed tweeter, pointed out the 161-year-old flub early Monday while searching the Times archive.
Interesting: That original 1853 article spelled Solomon's name differently in headline vs main article #12YearsASlave http://t.co/olPwzyP0n8
— Rebecca Skloot (@RebeccaSkloot) March 3, 2014
That led to the paper of record to issue a correction:
An article on Jan. 20, 1853, recounting the story of Solomon Northup, whose memoir “12 Years a Slave” became a movie 160 years later that won the best picture Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards on Sunday night, misspelled his surname as Northrop. And the headline misspelled it as Northrup. The errors came to light on Monday after a Twitter user pointed out the article in The Times archives.
"The errors notwithstanding," the correction noted, the 1853 article about Northup billed itself as “a more complete and authentic record than has yet appeared.”
Skloot, for her part, did not gloat.
.@Loukas_RS Hah. The irony, of course, is that I'm a terrible speller and proofreader.
— Rebecca Skloot (@RebeccaSkloot) March 4, 2014
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