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“Do Typos Count?” was the title of a recent post on one of my favorite blogs, You Don’t Say. The article asked whether “the occasional slip of the fingers on the keyboard” in a blog amounts to all that much.
I winced when I read the title. Not long before I had learned of an embarrassing typo in the May issue of National Geographic.
Our article “Arctic Landgrab” highlights the cutting-edge cartography used to map the bottom of the Arctic Ocean—and the race to stake claims on the oil that may lie beneath. Our cartographers spent months on the nine pages of maps in the article, poring over every detail, analyzing and updating numerous data sets, pondering labels, and rewriting captions to clearly and concisely convey complex information. As with all elements of National Geographic, the maps went through several proof versions, were sent to consultants, reviewed by researchers, editors, fact-checkers, copy editors, proofreaders. And yet none of the numerous people who read the maps (myself included) spotted the typo on page 112: “Alaksa” instead of “Alaska.”
Typos do count, especially in print publications like National Geographic. We regret the error and have tweaked our editorial process to help avoid such mistakes in the future.
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