On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, co-hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman lauded a retired school teacher who took the time to grade a letter she received from President Donald Trump's White House and posted a copy on social media after mailing it back.
As the teacher in question, Yvonne Mason, appeared as a guest on the show, Berman hailed her "gumption" and declared that "I love what you do here," and Camerota lauded the teacher's cockiness as she effused: "Agreed, I understand why this drives you crazy. I like your note at the top of where you marked it up where you say, 'Have y'all tried grammar and style check?'"
At 8:49 a.m. Eastern, Camerota set up the segment:
A retired English teacher is schooling President Trump on grammar and spelling. Yvonne Mason wrote a letter to the President after the Parkland massacre to express her disappointment in how the families of victims were treated. She got a form letter in response -- as is par for the course -- but the former teacher says she was so appalled by the errors in it that she pulled out her trusty teacher's pen and marked up a response and sent it back.
Mason explained that she was bothered by words like "Federal," "State," and "Nation" being capitalized when they technically should not have been, leading Berman to acknowledge there do exist circumstances where some style guides allow such capitalizations.
After the retired teacher again complained that the White House staffer who prepared the letter was using the wrong style guide and fretted that it would undermine efforts by teachers to teach their students properly, Camerota then lauded her thinking as the conversation continued:
MASON: It's just a matter of clear communication.
CAMEROTA: Yes, and consistency -- the things that we all learned. Agreed, I understand why this drives you crazy. I like your note at the top of where you marked it up where you say, "Have y'all tried grammar and style check?" Because there are computer programs that help you with some of these things.
Berman soon recalled a high school friend who similarly corrected a rejection letter he received from Princeton University -- which should have made the whole matter sound petty -- but the CNN host still praised his guest for her reaction:
One of my high school best friends was rejected by Princeton -- the letter had a bunch of grammatical errors. My friend circled all the errors and sent it back to Princeton, so I love what you do here because I think it's just, you know, it shows gumption.
The segment ended with the group musing over the possibility that President Trump would send out a tweet responding to the matter.
As previously documented by NewsBusters, the weekend edition of the show on Sunday also highlighted the graded letter that Mason had posted on social media.
