Typo of the Year: Obama/Osama
Osama Bin Laden’s death at the hands of the U.S. military led to an onslaught of Obama/Osama typos, chyrons and verbal slips. This was nothing new: I pegged this name confusion as a Trend of Note back in 2007. But 2011 saw the full potential of this type of error when Osama’s death was announced live on TV by President Obama. The result was an explosion of confusion in print, online, and on the air. (Want to know why it’s so easy to make this mistake? I explained here.) Below is a sampling of what we saw and heard:
Sadly, the best on air Osama/Obama mixup has been removed from YouTube. But you can read all about it here.
NPR:
South China Morning Post:
The paper followed its error with a mistaken correction:
In a headline on page A2 yesterday, the US president’s first name was erroneously given instead of that of Osama bin Laden. We apologise for the error.
Why is it incorrect? Because the paper made an Obama/Osama error — and that involves the U.S. president’s last name.
And a whole bunch more at Poynter Online
