Four decades ago Friday, The Dallas Morning News committed an error so grave, so egregious, that it long remained shrouded in silence — out of a deep sense of shame and self-recrimination that one can only imagine.
The paper called Chewbacca a "Wookie."
On Thursday, the 40th anniversary of the original Star Wars' release, editors nobly faced down the dark truth of their institution's past, publishing a correction:
"Our review of the original Star Wars, which appeared in The Dallas Morning News on May 26, 1977, incorrectly referred to Chewbacca as a 'Wookie.' The correct spelling, of course, is 'Wookiee.' We regret the error and apologize to the seven-foot-tall hairy alien biped community."
Thank you, Morning News, for offering a model of journalistic rigor and integrity.
Which brings us to our own dark past: Roughly seven years ago, we wrote a post about a trend that had hit Twitter at the time. It was a hashtag purporting to reveal the deepest secrets of the Star Wars universe — known, of course, as #WookieeLeaks.