A press scholar explains how the New York Times op-ed page got started.

And one for me. E-mail me (slate.pressbox@gmail.com) for my mailing address. And I don't care what Oakes said. I invented Twitter. (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum; in a future article; or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)

Track my errors: This hand-built RSS feed will ring every time Slate runs a "Press Box" correction. For e-mail notification of errors in this specific column, type the word op-ed in the subject head of an e-mail message, and send it to slate.pressbox@gmail.com.

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Correction, Sept. 28, 2010: This article originally misspelled the last name of Orvil Dryfoos. (Return to the corrected sentence.)