Four Chinese journalists were just suspended over a major typo involving China's president

Four Chinese journalists were suspended after the state-owned news agency they worked at made a major typo in one of its stories regarding the president of China.

To make matters worse, a number of news outlets copied the agency's story and the mistake within it.

China's state-owned China News Service printed a story with a quote from China's commander-in-chief in South Africa that mixed up the word "speech," which is "zhi ci" in Mandarin, with "ci zhi," which means "resignation."

Therefore it printed a story announcing China president Xi Jinping's impending so-called resignation instead of saying he was simply delivering a speech.

After the China News Service printed the story on Friday, a number of other outlets copied the report before CNS could issue a correction.

The South China Morning (SCMP) post reported that a number of Chinese journalists have since left CNS due to the typo. CNS' bureau chief in South Africa Song Fangcan was one of the journalists that allegedly quit following the incident.

SCMP also noted that the typo came only a few days after another state-owned newspaper Xinhua misspelled US President Barack Obama's name as "Ao Ma Ba" in a report about him meeting Xi Jinping.