Frederick Vosburgh

Correspondent:: König Prüße, GfbAEV
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 13:44:16 GMT

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washingtonpost.com
Editor Frederick Vosburgh, 100

By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 21, 2005; Page B05

Frederick G. "Ted" Vosburgh, 100, a former editor of
National Geographic magazine and vice president
of the National Geographic Society, died of pneumonia
Feb. 16 at Shady Grove Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

Mr. Vosburgh, who was the magazine's editor for three years,
retired in 1970 after 37 years with the organization. He was known
for his devotion to scrupulous accuracy.

"Perfect objectivity is hard to achieve," he once said.
"So is perfect honesty. But we should not abandon the
effort to attain either one just because perfection is
difficult or impossible."

According to an internal history of the magazine,
his exactitude and precision caused some colleagues
to say he had "an instinct for the capillary." When the
July 1964 issue was being printed, Mr. Vosburgh, then
the associate editor, halted the presses because a
restrictive comma had been omitted from an article.
He promptly inserted the punctuation, but the story of
the $30,000 comma often would be quoted as an
example of his insistence on the accuracy of details.