Best Correction Ever: “It Said That She Had Fallen In Love. We Failed To Mention It Was With An Entire Continent”

Oops. From Broadcasting & Cable, Elizabeth Vargas shared a heart-warming story with World News Tonight viewers last week: “The table of the postcard that 97-year-old Evelyn Greenawald of Anamosa, Iowa, received from her daughter, Sheri — 27 years after Sheri mailed it to her from Germany. An image of the postcard flashed across the screen as Vargas related the story, called ‘Snail Mail.’ Vargas then delivered the story’s charming kicker: ‘Her daughter was writing to her to tell her mother that she’d fallen in love.’

Awwww, that’s so nice, we thought — little TiVo buddy, let’s go back and freeze-frame that postcard and read what Sheri actually wrote: ‘Dear Mom & Dad, Am in Wurzburg with John & Lori having a great time. I’m in love with Europe. Will return to Paris the 24th…’ and so on. Er, not quite the parental notification of romantic involvement that non-DVR-equipped viewers might have assumed from the ABC report.

An ABC News spokesperson, when asked about the discrepancy, sighed and said, ‘It said that she had fallen in love. We failed to mention it was with an entire continent.'”