By Louis Chan
AsAmNews National Correspondent
Quite an embarrassing moment for the Wall Street Journal.
Joe Morgenstern, its Pulitzer Prize winning reviewer, confused Dev Patel with Kal Penn in his recent review of the movie, Lion.
The movie stars Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara.
In his review, Morgenstern called Patel’s performance his best since The Namesake.
Reader Kelvin Chen quickly called Morgenstern out for his mistake.
@JoeMorgenstern Dev Patel wasn’t in the Namesake. Did you mean the other brown actor (@kalpenn) or other brown film? 🙁 #wsj #lionmovie pic.twitter.com/UhPtVKmJ5B
— Kelvin (@kelvindchen) November 25, 2016
Morgenstern, as any good journalist would, quickly took ownership of his blunder.
@kelvindchen No, I can’t blame them. It was my careless mistake.
— Joe Morgenstern (@JoeMorgenstern) November 27, 2016
The reviewer followed that with a longer explanation saying he was angry with himself for his “dumb error.”
“If I’d seen anything like this in someone else’s column, I might have well thought the same thing many are now thinking about me–just one more White guy who thinks Brown or Black people look alike.
“What I wrote was offensive to many, and surely hurtful to some. I understand that, and I offer my heartfelt apology for it.
Here’s my response to reactions to the error in my “Lion” review this week. pic.twitter.com/20PPCx2WH1
— Joe Morgenstern (@JoeMorgenstern) November 26, 2016
We’ve all made dumb mistakes, me included. As far as apologies go, Morgenstern’s was a good one. What do you think?
