This month, The Post published an op-ed by Walter Pincus about the aftermath of the 1954 Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test the United States conducted in the Marshall Islands. Readers noticed that something wasn’t quite right about the photo that accompanied the article.
Samuel Cox, a retired rear admiral and director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, and William Douthitt, who was a managing editor at National Geographic and at Science magazine, identified the explosion as the smaller Licorne test that France conducted 16 years later. Al Mauroni, director of the U.S. Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies, explained that the “much more colorful” photo of the French test is often misattributed as an American detonation.
These letters and more sent Post Opinions Photo Editor Chloe Coleman on a mission. As it turned out, the test image was misattributed in Getty Images, one of the huge databases from which The Post licenses photos. Thanks to readers’ sharp eyes, we were able to correct our error — and to get better information to Getty, too, so other publications won’t make the same mistake in the future.
This small journalistic adventure struck me as a perfect opening to stop and say hello, since it’s such an excellent example of why letters to the editor exist. I’m excited to be your partner in these conversations. So please, keep those letters coming with the knowledge that you can make a difference.
Credit: Source link
