Who's to blame for spreading phony Jobs story?
"Unedited. Unfiltered. News."
That's the slogan CNN chose for its user-generated news site, iReport.com, a place designed to tap into the citizen journalism craze. At iReport, any member of the public is allowed to post stories, ostensibly as part of the cable network's news operation, simply by providing an e-mail address. CNN and citizen journalism are being criticized after someone used the site on Friday to spread the false report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a serious heart attack.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)The bogus story sparked a minor panic on Wall Street before Apple had a chance to deny the rumor. Trading in Apple's stock skyrocketed, and the share price briefly fell about 10 percent before rebounding later in the day.
How is it possible that a single fraudulent Internet report can wipe away millions or even billions of dollars of market value from one of the world's most powerful technology companies? That's the big question if you're one of Apple's investors. If you're an investigator for the Securities and Exchange Commission you're interested in who did it and why. According to CNN, SEC investigators are looking for the person who posted the fictional story to iReport.
Some of the other questions being asked are why mainstream news services didn't discredit the report before any damage was done? And who was minding the store for CNN? Surely, one of the country's most trusted news sources wouldn't allow just anyone to post a story under its banner without vetting it.
Also at the center of the controversy is Silicon Alley Insider, a New York-based technology and financial news blog that has earned enormous respect and popularity in a brief amount of time. SAI and CNN could see their reputations tarnished if they're found to be at fault, but I venture to say that in the wake of the controversy, everyone involved in online journalism is doing some self reflection.
This is a time of intense competition in tech journalism. A decade ago, newspapers used to write today's news for tomorrow's paper. Not anymore. Reporters are increasingly under pressure to publish news to the Web minutes after events occur. People who have been in the business for a while know what's often lost with this need-for-speed mentality is thoughtful writing and careful reporting. Following the phony Jobs story, many pundits placed the blame at the feet of CNN and citizen journalism. But the facts of the case raise questions about whether professional journalists behaved responsibly in their handling of the story.
"Severe chest pains"
The incident began when someone posted a report on CNN's iReport shortly before 4 a.m. PDT. "Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack,"the post at iReport read. "I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable."
What hasn't been widely circulated yet is that iReport was not the first place the fake story was sent. Arnold Kim, who operates the blog, MacRumors.com, wrote Friday that someone submitted the same rumor to his site using an anonymous IP address. Kim did some research on the rumor and decided it was a fake. Later, he tracked the report and found it being circulated by members of online message board 4chan. Kim also discovered the item was circulating on Digg, a popular news aggregation site. Digg users, however, voted the story down, meaning they also were skeptical.
The next place Kim saw the rumor was at SAI.
At about 6:25 a.m. PDT, SAI published this headline: "Apple's Steve Jobs Rushed To ER After Heart Attack, Says CNN Citizen Journalist." Within the blog, SAI informed readers that the report hadn't been substantiated but reporters were checking it out. To that point, no other mainstream media outlet had published anything about Jobs' health, according to Henry Blodget, SAI's founder and a former well-known tech analyst.
Blodget told CNET News that his staff tried to contact Apple and CNN representatives to confirm the story prior to publishing but were unable to reach them. SAI decided to post the item--with all the disclosures about it being unconfirmed--anyway.
At 6:41 a.m. PDT, Apple's stock price began to plummet.
At 6:52 a.m. PDT, SAI updated its story to report that an Apple representative had denied the iReport story, Blodget said. A few minutes after that, Apple's stock began to recover.
Blodget defends his site's story
Kim from MacRumors argues that it was SAI's post that gave the rumor credibility and spooked Wall Street. "The (iReport) story has been picked up by numerous sites as a failure of citizen journalism," Kim wrote. "It's nothing of the sort. The real reason it gained traction is the reporting of it on mainstream blog sites."
I asked Blodget whether SAI should have waited to confirm the information before posting. After all, the blog was dealing with a potential life-and-death report about one of technology's most influential leaders. Blodget said he has no regrets about going with the story when he did.
"The Steve Jobs report was the lead story on a site operated by CNN," Blodget said by e-mail. "It was highly relevant to anyone who cares about Steve or Apple...It was already getting notice when we heard about it. We never know how long it will take to confirm or reject information like that, and we knew our readers would want to evaluate it themselves. So we described exactly what the report was, said we didn't know whether it was true or not, and said we were investigating. Twenty minutes later we broke the news that the report was false."
CNN responded to this by saying that while iReport is relatively new, the company has been involved in user-generated content since August 2006 and this is the first time that any mainstream news site has mistaken some of its user-generated content for CNN-vetted material. Jennifer Martin, a CNN spokeswoman, said that though CNN owns and operates iReport, it is very clear that the information on the site is, like the slogan says, unedited and unfiltered. In iReport's "About" section is written this statement: "CNN makes no guarantees about the content or the coverage on iReport.com."
That may be true but a visit to iReport reveals there is little to distinguish user-generated reports from those filed by professionals. CNN often does fact-check some of the user-generated stories. If they're accurate, the network will use them on TV broadcasts or CNN-branded Web sites. Martin said these vetted reports are clearly identified with the label "Now on CNN."
What are the lessons?
As for Silicon Alley Insider's part in this mess, Blodget suggests that CNN's ownership of iReport gave credibility to the false Jobs story. But some Apple investors might say the same thing about SAI's report. The former analyst was once a Wall Street insider and his staff has been loaded with seasoned reporters from publications such as Forbes and Variety. Even if SAI prominently noted that the iReport story was unconfirmed, the fact that SAI had written about it and was checking it out may have given the report some credibility.
This isn't the first time that a respected blog has found itself answering questions about why it reported on a bogus tip. In May 2007, Engadget received what appeared to be an internal Apple memo that indicated the launch of the iPhone was going to be delayed. The memo was a fake and after the gadget blog reported the false rumor, Apple's market cap lost $4 billion. Engadget, like SAI, did not confirm the story first with Apple before publishing.
There's no doubt that both CNN and SAI will move forward and continue to produce important and accurate news stories. Maybe CNN will take a closer look at how it displays its user-generated reports. As for journalists, citizen and professional, maybe the takeaway for us is to slow down just long enough to make one more phone call, talk to one more source.
The public is less interested in us getting the story first as it is in us getting the story right.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Punctuation and line breaks. They're your friends!
The internet has ushered in the era of mediocrity any joe blow can write or say anything without any accountability. Writers don?t bother fact checking because technology has allowed them to pull an article in a moment?s notice, where is with traditional like print or news you can?t recall you have to publish a public apology.
The internet cheapens journalism!
"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come."
So much has changed in the past couple years alone...we've gone from a world that printed our news at night to be distributed the next morning...to a world where rumors can start instantaneously, just because every news source wants to be the first to get wind of a story.
And I wonder...who WOULD replace Steve Jobs if he died overnight?
Anyone who followed the story of Heath Ledger's death already knew that. This new breed of journalism has led to a very large lack of accountability. People are willing to break false news stories to boost their reputation as being the first, even if it ends up hurting someone else. And short of defamation, there is no way to hold these people responsible. It just makes it worse when bloggers try to say that this story is evidence of the success of newblogging. If anything, it's the inevitable result of non-traditional journalists looking to push their way into the limelight.
cnn, reuters and the rest believe they can replace salaried employees with camcorder-wielding loose cannons. these programs are not launched to widen the news gathering process. they are launched to cheapen the news gathering process.
so wrong
What worries me are the so-called professional journalists, especially those at AP. Thet are abusing the 1st Amendment with biased reporting.
People should have the right to free speech and has the right to publish their copyrighted work. If this cheapens journalism, then be it. The fact that people are confining themselves to Fox News and CNN as their authority to accurate and true reporting, is the people problem. I found some bloggers spilling more truths than the popular media outlet. At the end, the reason why CNN does ireport is because it brings people on to participate, and when more people come on, they make more money. I don't see CNN getting rid of iReport. If they do, they will die.
I love the Internet. It redefines a lot of status quo.
The internet is the greatest propaganda tool ever invented. Sillicon Alley Insider is a propaganda tool. Henry Blodget is a propagandist, who knew the story was fake, because he googled it just like Arnold Kim did, and saw the same suspect hits. He had to know that printing the story in SAI could crash the stock. At this point he must have called someone. Someone that would say go or no-go. Who did you call, Henry?
Also, Apple leads in music plays (iPod as and 80% share) and they are the number 3 smart phone (which is amazing since the iPhone is only 1.5 years old). So get your facts you loser.
It's stupid to to say Macs are tied with Dell. Add up all the Windows machines and compare that with all MAC OS machines, then you'll get a true glimpse of reality.... and the failure of the Mac.
We agree on one point... Apple has become a phone/music device hardware sales company. Computers are of second importance to them.
At this point they have at least 10%, and climbing very fast.
Finally, Job's hasn't had the Apple 'franchise' for 30 years, he only came back to Apple in 97 or 98. Lemme guess, you are a PeeCee?
If I were Microsoft, I would certainly not find this as a consolation...
When Steve Jobs is gone, don't they think they should at least give the company a bit of time ti prove it can or can't continue? If they can't then why should we care what they think, or why should we bail them out. They'll just keep screwing up the economy as long as they exist.
Maybe it tells us more about the hair-trigger, speculative factors stock trades are based on than it does about the failure of citizen "journalism" or "reportage." There's a calculus where SAI decides whether or not to run it, with qualifying language, and there's also a calculus where traders decide whether or not to trade based on such a qualified rumor.
- by kaega2 October 5, 2008 9:03 AM PDT
- The internet is the ultimate tool for communication. In the hands of someone that knows what they're doing, it can be many things. You say the internet cheapens Journalism. Why? Because you believed everything Journalists said before the internet was 100% true?
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- by themainbreeze October 5, 2008 7:23 PM PDT
- Anyone who follows Apple and has any knowledge of the company and it's history knows how capable it's entire executive team is - Moron
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- by Macbrewer October 5, 2008 11:27 PM PDT
- It had a lot more to do with the extreme panic last week than anything else. People are always lying about Apple, mostly PC users who have no idea what they are talking about.
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- by artistjoh October 6, 2008 2:11 AM PDT
- It is unbelievable that someone would blame the victim like this in a case of huge moral neglect or criminal activity on the part of the originator of the story.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (54 Comments)I agree this is a situation that should have never happened, but how can you blame a news/blog site for posting it? The common people have more blame in this then anybody. I hear people saying they've come to rely on the accuracy of blogs. Do you realize how foolish this is? I don't want to tell you not to trust people, but evidence and facts are what you should rely on, not the person/company that said it. A rumor doesn't start because someone said it, it starts because someone believed it.
I haven't had the chance to see the original journal entry. From what I read above his evidence was based on a "reliable source", what we commonly call hear/say. This story should have been taken with a grain of salt from the very beginning. To block this story would be bad for truth seekers. Who's to say his source wasn't correct at the time of posting? Even if someone was checking for accuracy, who's to say the person making the post isn't more informed? People should be able to read over a journal/blog entry and be able to decipher how reliable their information is themselves. A good and informed journalist will present his facts, and their origins.
I personally believe this story was maliciously posted to convince us censorship is needed for these news sites. I can see it now, 'mainstream news and blog sites will now be taking the time to choose what you can and cannot report for your own safety', and the public will love them for it. What better way to do it? Have a story posted on a site (maybe even your own site) that hurts a company people love so much it practically has cult following. This upset a lot of people that love Apple, and I'm sure most of these people want to see something done about this so it doesn't happen again. And the EASY answer is censorship.
In conclusion, don't let someone spoon feed you the news. Make an educated and informed decision based on what you know, not just on what someone has told you. Besides, when you have the whole world able to present evidence, facts, criticism, and correct mistakes without being filtered which will be more accurate in the end? Think about it.
PS: I agree that Apple is mostly responsible for the drop in stock prices. Like someone else said earlier, it's seen by most that Steve Jobs is the heart and soul of Apple, and if he were to leave the company would go down the tubes. If people believed there were other capable executives and thinkers to keep the company going after Steve dies, this would never have happened. If Steve were to leave Apple, most of Apple's followers would probably go with him (hopefully not in death).
Either the person did it to manipulate the stock market for their personal profit which results in the collatoral damage of other innocent people losing money. It is the loses suffered by the innocent that makes this a criminal act.
If it was just a prank that is almost as bad. It is repugnant to spread stories of someone's ill health or death. It is a malicious and vile act.
Neither case has anything to do with Apple's corporate arrangements except indirectly, and your insensitivity and thoughtless comments in attributing majority blame to Apple is callous at the very least.