Arturo San Agustín explained the tribulations of a reporter who, after spending half an hour deciding whether to spell it Gorbachov or Gorbachov – this was before the internet, of course – ended up assigning him the position of President of the United States. The anecdote is a fable about the inevitability of typos: when you look to one side, it ambushes you right there. The "New York Times" published a headline on both sides that read: "A North America Treaty Organization without America?". Once it was printed, they realized that the N in NATO doesn't stand for North, but for North Atlantic. Consequently, a good part of the headline's intention is lost.
The typo has gained traction on social media because it's considered one of those Freudian slips that, beyond the error, reveal the medium's mindset. But, above all, it highlights one of the media's ills: the crisis in journalism has led to many cuts across the board, and those for editors and proofreaders are among the most damaging. And while it's true that we journalists have more resources than ever to self-edit, anyone who has worked a bit in a text production service knows that a second and third look is essential if we want to minimize (though not eliminate) mistakes. I suppose publishing first on the web has also relaxed habits a bit: we count on being able to correct inadvertent blunders that readers point out in the comments. (While we're at it: thanks to those who have polished mine). If we add to all this that a writer now produces triple the texts they did twenty years ago, and the rush of immediacy, we have the perfect formula for the multiplication of typos, despite new autocorrection tools. Not to mention when these same autocorrection tools create chaos and leave us with gems like "Leo Messi" and other similarly glorious examples, some of which end up being legendary and even endearing.
