diff --git a/documentation/sphinx/source/mr-status.rst b/documentation/sphinx/source/mr-status.rst
index 3b859cae87..61ba3234ab 100644
--- a/documentation/sphinx/source/mr-status.rst
+++ b/documentation/sphinx/source/mr-status.rst
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ You can access machine-readable status in three ways ways:
 * From any client, read the key ``\xFF\xFF/status/json``. The value of this key is a JSON object serialized to a byte string with UTF-8 encoding. In Python, given an open database ``db``, the JSON object can be read and deserialized with::
 
     import json
-    status = json.loads(db['\xff\xff/status/json'])
+    status = json.loads(db[b'\xff\xff/status/json'])
 
 Guidance regarding versioning
 =============================
@@ -144,4 +144,4 @@ Name                                Description
 count                               How many tags are throttled
 busy_read                           How many tags are throttled because of busy read
 busy_write                          How many tags are throttled because of busy write
-=================================== ====================================================
\ No newline at end of file
+=================================== ====================================================