On last night’s Daily Show, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told an interesting story about a belated newspaper apology. She said a Connecticut newspaper had been incredibly harsh to Thomas Jefferson during a campaign, and that nearly 200 years later it apologized for its nastiness.
I’ve made a habit of noting belated newspaper apologies, so I went looking for this one. Low and behold, the Hartford Courant published this “Dear Tom Jefferson” editorial on April 13, 1993 :
On your 250th birthday today, it seems proper to let bygones be bygones.
During the post-Colonial years, you and The Courant didn’t see eye to eye about America’s future. On these pages, this newspaper called you an anti-Christian, a dupe and a cat’s paw of the French.
Remember The Courant’s campaign against you in the presidential election of 1800? In a series of letters signed by “Burleigh,” the publishers Barzillai Hudson and George Goodwin gave their reasons why your presidency would spell disaster. They feared that you would sacrifice the Constitution to the radical Jacobins, who were feared in their time as the Communists have been feared in our times.
One particularly gloomy outburst from Mr. Burleigh predicted the following outcome under your presidency: “Neighbors will become the enemies of neighbors, fathers of their sons, and sons of their fathers. Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practised, the air will be rent with the cries of distress, the soil soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.”
You didn’t like Alexander Hamilton’s ideas of a central government; The Courant did. You advocated separation of church and state, which The Courant thought to be a blasphemous idea. This newspaper denounced your purchase of the Louisiana Territory. When you raised concerns about limiting voting rights to property-owning white males, Messrs. Hudson and Goodwin became all the more convinced you were a Jacobin.
Well, it’s never too late to admit a mistake. We, the 1990s stewards of the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper, have the benefit of hindsight. You turned out to be a good influence on America. In fact, some would say that you were a terrific influence on the world.
The Courant’s early publishers weren’t entirely off the mark, however. They were right to point out the contradiction, and hypocrisy, of your owning slaves and preaching freedom.
So you weren’t perfect, Tom. But The Courant wishes you happy birthday anyway. And if you were around in 1992, our hunch is that we would have championed your candidacy for president.
Wow, “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practised.” Makes the coverage of the current campaign look downright genial.
Barbara Dignoti of East Windsor* was shown in a photograph on Page B1 Sunday as she watched the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Hartford on Saturday. The caption misspelled her last name as Pignoti. 
On Feb. 28, in the Flavor section, The Courant printed a review about a new 
“The Counterfeiters,” which won the Oscar for foreign-language film, is from Austria, not Australia, as was incorrectly reported in a story on Page D1 Monday. 
Craig Betancourt, the Groton man charged with killing 2-year-old Treau Bemis in September, is the fiancé of the child’s aunt, Kimberly Bemis. A story on Page B1 on Nov. 21 incorrectly described Betancourt as the child’s mother’s fiancé. 
A story on Page B1 on Nov. 17 quoted Milly Arciniegas, president of the Hartford PTO council, as saying that Mayor Eddie Perez “has a lock on power and it’s quite intimidating.” Arciniegas denies using the phrase “lock on power,” but says the expression accurately described her feelings. 
A photo caption on Page 1 Wednesday incorrectly identified Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert is shown on the right; Abbas is on the left. 
The president of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, is a man. A graphic on Page A2 Tuesday incorrectly identified him as female. 
Sharon M. Petersen, formerly a nurse at the University of Connecticut Health Center, was initially charged with assault in connection with administering an overdose of painkiller to an elderly patient who subsequently died. An autopsy concluded that the cause of the patient’s death was an accidental hip fracture and other underlying medical conditions, not the overdose. A story and headline on Page B1 Saturday indicated the overdose was fatal. The story also said the nurse’s license had been suspended for six months; the actual time was 60 days. 
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has had to run a correction after it ran a photo of a librarian and identified him as the priest former Rep. Mark Foley said he was sexually assaulted by. (See our Foley corrections collection 
