08 Oct 03 : Apple Denies Steve Jobs Heart Attack Report: It Is Not True
Cant say how serious this is, but anyways, it's just something that caught my eyes while browsing through the history and watching the movement of the DJIA on the lower Congress Bailout.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Citizen journalism" apparently just failed its first significant test. A CNN iReport poster reported this morning that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the ER after a severe heart attack. Fortunately, it appears the story was false. We contacted an Apple spokeswoman, who categorically denied it.
CNN's iReport kept the report up until at least 10:15 AM, about 20 minutes after we published Apple's denial. The story has since been removed.
Immediately after reading the iReport story, we contacted Apple. Katie Cotton, Vice President of Worldwide Communications, replied quickly, saying "It is not true."
Twitter is abuzz. Apple's stock also took a major hit before bouncing back.
Investigation?
We expect this will lead to an SEC investigation. The IP address of the iReport poster will be easily traceable, and we expect the SEC will want to interview him or her to see if the story was "placed." (You don't have to be George Soros to figure out how the stock would react to a story like this.)
It is significant that this report appeared on a site owned by CNN. CNN does not profess to be directly responsible for iReport, but its name is at the top of the site. It's possible that reports like this will significantly damage CNN's credibility, and we wouldn't be surprised if this caused them to pull back from association with "citizen journalism." As of 10:07 AM ET, ten minutes after we published Apple's denial, iReport was still "reporting" the story. By 10:20, the story had been removed and replaced.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh and, did I told you that Apple's stock plunge on the rumor?
This definitely shows that rumors, is part of what that makes the price of a stock.
Cheers.
Comments