Typos happen all the time but this is the kind of mistake everyone tries their best to avoid.
This morning, GMA News Online reported that Filipino figure skater Michael Christian Martinez was going to compete in the upcoming Winter Olympics…in Pyongyang. Yup, the typo moved the Olympics from the South Korean city of PyeongChang to the capital of North Korea.
To be fair, it’s an easy mistake to make considering the two cities sound similar. The writer also got it right in the story’s body.
Nonetheless, the long-running conflict between the two Koreas and the escalating tensions between the US and North Korea puts this kind of mistake on our “typos-you-don’t-want-to-make-in-headlines” list.
While this was probably an innocent typo, calling it the “Pyongyang Olympics” has actually been used intentionally in South Korea to criticize the government for agreeing to let North Korea participate in the games. The two countries also plan to march together under one flag.
On Tuesday, people protesting this decision even set North Korean flags on fire in Seoul’s central train station.
And their concerns aren’t unfounded.
Kim Hyon Hui, a former North Korean spy, said that they may be using the Olympics “as a weapon.”
“It’s trying to escape the sanctions by holding hands with South Korea, trying to break free from international isolation,” Kim told NBC News.
However, the South Korean government believes the Olympics is a good way to ease tension between the two countries.
“We’re confident that the Olympics will be a stepping stone to bring peace to the Korean peninsula, to Northeast Asia and the world,” South Korean presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun said in a news conference.
GMA News Online eventually updated their story 20 minutes after publishing but the error can still be seen in the article’s URL.
