Slashdot Mirror
Jobs Rumor Debacle Besmirches Citizen Journalism
On Friday someone posted a false rumor that Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack on CNN's unverified citizen journalism site, iReport. Apple's stock price went vertical, losing 9% before Apple stepped in and denied the rumor; the stock then recovered most of its loss. The SEC is investigating. PCWorld looks at the hit taken by citizen journalism as a result of this incident. "[The] increasingly blurred line between journalism and rumor is a serious concern for Al Tompkins, the broadcast/online group leader at The Poynter Institute — a specialized school for journalists of all media forms. 'How could you possibly allow just anybody to post just anything under your [CNN] label unless you have blazing billboards that say, "None of this has been verified, we've not looked at any of this, we have no idea if this is true"?' he asks."
vertical as in down? huh?
The stock manipulation possibilities here are pretty big, as is the lawsuit potential.
Hell? Even 4chan and Slashdot are pretty clear about who owns the comments and the veracity of the comments.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
People with the burden and responsibility of thinking for theirselves will be able to assess the risks of trusting an unknown information source just fine. New filters have already been created to make the unknown sources trustable. I don't understand why their is an investigation. Now the story has publicity people can assess the risks more correctly. No need for the law to get involved.
Ace Frehley is rolling over in his grave at this trumped up story.
CNN has no responsibility to police its message boards. Just like Slashdot has no responsibility to do so here either.
How could you possibly allow just anybody to post just anything under your [CNN] label unless you have blazing billboards that say
Which part of "CNN's unverified citizen journalism site" was unclear?
Okay, so I have to see for myself...
The site currently is titled "Unedited. Unfiltered. News." but it really doesn't mention that it is "citizen journalism." It looks like a cross between Digg/Slashdot and CNN. SO I guess someone could be confused. But I bet a big "THIS IS NOT NEWS I JUST MADE IT UP OMG!!" would not have helped Apple's stock that day.
Wait until Apple's (liti)gators surface - CNN will wish that 'besmirched' was the extent of the damage.
...but with the financial system. maybe we should be looking instead at how vast sums of money can be moved into and out of a company in seconds? episodes like this have shown the instability of the share market, and the craziness of the finance market. everything is built upon smoke and mirrors - performance counts for little, while perception, lies and marketing rule the day
and why are the traders who sold off their shares paying attention to unverified sources like ireport? well, probably because the trader next to them did; it's all got to a point of 'following the herd' rather than making decisions based on financial judgement.
90% of trades based on speculation? what do you expect?
If I recall even the article writer wasn't sure it was true and said as much. It's typical of the stock market to rise and fall on the possibility of something happening. I'm surprised Apple's stock isn't in the toilet already -- they must think Steve Jobs is immortal...
The problem isn't that's unedited unfiltered, that just means there may be naughty words and curses in it. It should be "unfiltered and unverified" news. A quick look @ the website, even scrolling down, shows no disclaimer that this unverified. Breaking news is fine, so I understand not wanting to take the time to verify, but there should be a disclaimer that it's unverified. And until this story on here, I never heard of it. So I may have taken something on there for fact had I stumbled on it by accident or via google search.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Oh, the iRony...
This is just in, Microsoft is filling for bankruptcy.
Phew, a chance I just coincidentally bought a shitload of puts on MSFT. Market prediction? Fuck that, it's easier to predict the weather when you know how to make shit start to rain.
You just got troll'd!
So this, like the previous wikipedia story basically hinge on the fact that people -- who should really know much better -- are believing stuff they read on the internet from dubious sources. (anything on Wikipedia is likely to be dubious at least to some degree)
You believe stuff you read on the internet, you get burned, quel surprise?
It ain't karma, it's just stupidity. It is admittedly disturbing -- and yet unsurprising considering recent world financial events -- that the stupidity in question in this case involves people who work in the stock market.
He had pancreatic cancer 4 years ago... and recently had "some" surgery ( which implies it is not cancer ) and he dropped a LOT of weight. Some say the whipple ( surgery to reroute around pancreas) could be the culprit. What would Apple be like without him? Last time, it was significantly less than good.
As one of a group who received a C&D from a game company over a CLEARLY labelled April Fool's Day joke about a decade back, on a hobby site where we REALLY weren't monitoring who our traffic was (thinking "Us and all of our NO readers"). Turns out the site had become a news dissemination portal for various game retailers, and when they viewed the joke page, they panicked before actually reading the WHOLE page and called the game company up to freak out at.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That word always makes me laugh.
MABASPLOOM!
"CNN has no responsibility to police its message boards. Just like Slashdot has no responsibility to do so here either."
Right!
What it "besmirches" is (1) stock speculation and people who fall for that and (2) companies that are propped up by irrational exuberance and illusions.
Well, that's just a link to another blog. Why would I trust a blogger to tell me that some blogger is being investigated by the SEC for misleading blogging? Oh wait, it's got a link to a bloomberg.com article. But who wrote that one? Connie Guglielmo? Who's that? Is she another "citizen journalist"? Hmmm... dunno. Well, at least her posting consists of something more than "I heard from a friend who's, like, totally reliable."
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Please, the presumption that this only happens because of "citizen" journalists is comical in face of all the intentional distortions, spin, bias, poor fact checking, and general incompetence of the general media.
Most columnists have such big axes to grind that that's all they are... a walking talking cause. Most of the reporters are both sloppy and lazy. Most of the anchors and tv personalities are just talking heads... mindless twits with million dollar smiles and/or the ability to spin like a quasar.
Citizen journalists are if anything worse however unlike regular journalists they've not given the benefit of the doubt on issues. When they report something we need verification. That is the value of citizen journalists. They're good because we don't trust them. If we could all be as dubious of regular journalists then they'd have some value. But we do trust them... and that leaves us open to deceit.
Seriously, investors knock 10% off the value of Apple's stock because somebody anonymously posted a rumor on the internet and this is "citizen journalism"'s fault? Bullshit. Is everybody who falls for a 419 scam also a black eye for citizen journalism? By these standards, every time a political campaign inserts a letter to the editor under a false name, the very foundations of the mainstream media are called into question. This is idiocy.
Ok people, I know that those of you who get to write for the real media want this to be important, it isn't, suck it up. Anyway, repeat after me: "Anybody can say anything on the internet, this doesn't make it true."
Nice, you successfully called Wikipedia a hoax and a prank without actually saying it. Like anything else, if you trust the material on Wikipedia to be true, you're going to get burned eventually. I for one use it as a starting point if I really need to research something, but never as a source itself.
Guys, this is not new.
Some people on /b/ spent an hour early Friday morning discussing how they could make up a rumor that people were likely to believe, just for the lulz. Eventually, and basically by accident, someone decided that a Steve Jobs rumor would work just fine. He posted a fake but almost plausible story on iReport and digg ("I just saw paramedics take Steve Jobs away, he had a heart attack!") and got hundreds or thousands of /b/ users to Digg it.
I saw this conversation happening live. It's pretty cool that tens of thousands of random anonymous people can change world markets, huh?
The story was obviously fake, and any careful reader of Digg would've immediately noticed the 4chan references in the comments. Naturally there were no careful readers; blogs which have never been very good about checking their sources reported the joke as a real rumor, and small parts of the "real media" started to pick up the story.
The beleaguered stock hit its 52-week low on Friday, although it regained some value after Apple issued an official denial. The SEC has demanded (and received) docs from CNN on the /b/tard who submitted the iReport story.
There's nothing new here, guys. Real media have always known that you need to trust your sources, and if the free market and the "new media" blogs can't figure that out, they're dumber than we give them credit for.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
The Bloomberg/Google slipup a while back also caused large-scale losses, in that instance to United Airlines. Bloomberg actually stated that it does not verify the accuracy of news from other sources. Basically, it trusted Google to do the verification.
This is actually the way it should be. Using automated trading and real-time news to speculate on the stock market should, on average, lose you money. It gives negative inducement to speculation. Investments need to be chosen based on real data, and concrete value. Not based on what you think others will do.
If this is a legitimate case of attempted manpulation, the SEC can do its job. If not, it's a small loss that should have been factored into any risk calculations when the investors decided to trade like this.
Three rights make a left. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly.
At some point, they need to make shorting stocks illegal. I'm not an economist and I'm sure one will be happy to point out some perfectly valid reason for shorting stocks to be permitted but, I'm sorry, the ability to short stocks results in far too much outright stock manipulation in a very negative way that hurts even a healthy economy (and we all know how far from healthy this economy is...).
Given the number of lies that went unchallenged by the mainstream media after the vice presidential debate, I find it hard to trust the mainstream media any more than anyone else. Journalistic integrity is at an extremely low level and our only option is to do all the research ourselves. The only sad thing is that we have no legal recourse to do anything about these bastard liars except for to boycott them.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
What ought to be besmirched are the automated stock trading systems that monitor the news wires and enact trades based on what they find. If every unsubstantiated rumor is going to cause a hair-trigger move in a stock, there may need to be some measures taken to curb this, or the opportunities for manipulation are endless. By the way, WARREN BUFFET IS DEAD! DETAILS AT 11!
really? you should watch fox more
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Why should "citizen journalists" be held to a higher standard? As the recent Bloomberg screwup on the same subject reminds us, it's not like you verify anything your "professional" journalists produce.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
s/obama/mccain/g
s/obama/bush/h s/campaign/presidency/g
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Millions of citizen suddenly awake from hypnosis ... naked, wandering the streets, iPods covering their genitalia.
Everyone's blushing as they throw their devices to the trash.
Riiiight, much as how /. should have a big disclaimer saying that most things aren't 100% verified, or Engadget, or any other news site. People should be smart enough to figure out the fact from the fiction, and honestly, I don't see how Steve's death is going to make you want to sell your Apple stock, and absolutely not on simply a rumor, just as I won't go out and buy 1000 shares of Apple stock whenever there are "pictures" of the new iPod.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The SEC made naked short selling illegal. Hedge funds manipulated stock on a massive scale in just this way, and had no other interest than making the stock move the way it wanted it to move so as to make money. It's galling that the gubment has wait so long to step on obvious quasi-legal schemes to protect investors..
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Wow, it worked.
There was a thread on /b/ a few days ago where Anonymous decided to spread a rumour. A few were suggested but the Steve Jobs one was picked because the consensus was that it was the most believable.
Blame the investors.
Welcome, Internet. You take every baboon, idiot, and moron and give them the opportunity to be heard at the same level of volume as every other individual out there. You then take a news agency, wanting to capitalize on not having to pay stringers constantly, and provide said speech free to the world.
I laugh.
I spent 5 years in college doing photojournalism, 4 years in High school, and 2 years in middle school- all with a camera plastered to my hip and face. My life was defined in photos of other people. Now out, I look forth and see every person with a cell phone camera capturing daily drivel and spouting it off as 'news'. News is immediate and important based on locality- ie, it's important if you shoot it because it's important to you- the rest of the world (more likely than not) just doesn't give a shit. However- and here is where the internet and CNN step in- you now have a distribution model to *make* it important.
So the health of Steve Jobs is suspect- we all know that. Apple hid it from the world so the stock price wouldn't tank. Apple has done it to itself by not being candid in the past- and has reinforced the notion that if the almighty master suffers the company will suffer. Had they suffered this price dump in the past the future wouldn't revolve around every little sniffle.
Investigate all you want- Even if the stock was manipulated many people took profit at the news- because they recognized the inherit fear that Apple has now linked itself to Steve Job's life.
Thus, I give you my opinion on citizen journalism: http://xkcd.org/481/
*please note that this post itself citizen journalism and the author is subject to the same rant he inflicts upon others.
The citizen jounalism isn't the problem; it's the ridiculously gullible stock investors. How many times most they be burned before they start learning basic fundamentals of life?
The fact that stocks can consistently be played by unverified rumors posted on an open public forum... well, money flows from the stupid to the smart. Note that the stock price has recovered, but Darwin has shifted it into better hands.
I for one use it as a starting point if I really need to research something, but never as a source itself.
And this is precisely why Wikipedia forbids to accept original research and unverified claims. Those are marked with [citation needed] tags.
From Wikipedia's article on Wikipedia:
Co-founder Jimmy Wales stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate as primary sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.[55]
[55] # ^ Helm, Burt (2005-12-14). "Wikipedia: "A Work in Progress"", BusinessWeek. Retrieved on 2007-01-29.
And this is why I don't take the "Professor Wikipedia" video as an insult to wikipedia, but as educational humour.
It should be "unfiltered and unverified" news. A quick look @ the website, even scrolling down, shows no disclaimer that this unverified. Breaking news is fine, so I understand not wanting to take the time to verify, but there should be a disclaimer that it's unverified. And until this story on here, I never heard of it. So I may have taken something on there for fact had I stumbled on it by accident or via google search.
So if you stumbled on some random "news" site on the net you'd automatically assume it was verified news? That sounds pretty naive to me. Do you assume everything you read on Slashdot is verified by the editors? iReport.com makes no claim that the stories are verified and the connection to CNN is fairly subtle (a small faint "powered by CNN" logo at the bottom and an ad stating that iReport stories had been used on CNN). I don't see any reason to assume that the stories on that site are verified. The "about" page, which seems the obvious place to go to find out what verification is done clearly states up front that it is unverified:
The views and content on this site are solely those of the iReport.com contributors. CNN makes no guarantees about the content or the coverage on iReport.com!
Oh, that wacky Anonymous is at it again!
I mean would you be "besmirching" an anonymous coward? Oh, by the way AMD cannot get credit and is going to loose it's fabrication contracts. You heard it on slashdot first!!!
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Well, if Jobs moved on, then there would be a management shake up at Apple, which could mean things would be different, either good or bad. Change doesn't go well with people, so I can see them selling out of uncertainty. Slashdot links to articles that have at least been somewhat researched, of you'll see interviews with people which means questions were asked.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
What the hell was offtopic about it?? I'm just illustrating how idiots react to rumors. Maybe you were one of those idiots?
What?
There is little 'newsworthiness' to what gets reported in the 'citizen journalism' fashion that it does on CNN -or anywhere else. 'Citizen journalism' is best relegated to cat-up-a-tree or man bites dog drivel that hardly warrants even a passing glance. What it does represent is the attempt by 'news' networks to boost their viewer ratings by getting fools to post questionable content to their website. Marketing disguised as 'journalism' should be viewed with the most jaundiced of eyes.
Sig this!
That heading sounds like Firehose on Slashdot. I'd expect it to be an unedited feed from CNN's correspondents. Not completely random crap.
You must be new-ish here. While it is true that a lot of /. articles are reputable, a lot of others are small blogs or websites that no one has any way of verifying if they are true or not. For all most people know, I could have made up an entire interview, added in a good domain name, and a decent layout and people might actually believe me.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
No. I expect the articles linked are verified. If it's a blog, I don't even bother reading usually. Yay! The disclaimer is on the about page. It should be on the MAIN page. I feel Cnet or Associated Press or other mainstream news outlets do some research. If you look @ some of the stories I've posted and got accepted, I link to actual news sites. Sometimes, I even double check other articles from other people before I read the summary and comment, just to make sure it's not something someone saw somewhere off the beaten path.
But, I guess that's just me. Call it naive if you want. But if I'm gonna discuss something, I like to have as many facts as I can and know that it's at least been researched at least a little bit or reported in more than once place.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
How is that citizen journalism has taken a hit because of one idiot? Does mainstream media take a hit any time they post a photoshopped image or report with a bias? Seems like someone with an agenda against citizen journalism, not objective reporting.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Fake Steve Jobs' writer had a real heart attack?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Online bullshit hurt a company that trades stocks based on bullshit. Big fucking deal. Apple, like many other companies that are traded publicly depend on bullshit news to drive their stock value up. I'll simply chalk this one up for the good guys, because it hurt Apple's stock value. If there is one lesson that we all need to learn... Its that an economy that runs on bullshit, is wrong and will fail in time. And that is why our government is handing out 840 billion dollars in corporate. We run on bullshit, we legislate based on bullshit... the entire thing is one big Wizard Of Oz scenario. Its all a giant pile of shit behind the curtain. Fuck truth... bet on bullshit to win.
If it's something interesting to me, I actually search for things in his interview and see if it's quoted elsewhere. I've been doing that a lot actually w/ the Raiders coach mess because quotes are being misquoted over and over, and I want to try to get the context as much as I can. I don't ever read slashdot interviews. If I must read a blog, I'll follow a link or 2 to make sure it's reputable, and if there are no links, I close the tab.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
"[The] increasingly blurred line between journalism and rumor is a serious concern for Al Tompkins, the broadcast/online group leader at The Poynter Institute â" a specialized school for journalists of all media forms. 'How could you possibly allow just anybody to post just anything under your [CNN] label unless you have blazing billboards that say, "None of this has been verified, we've not looked at any of this, we have no idea if this is true?"' he asks."
Probably because they would have to show that same billboard wrapped around 75% of what they report.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
I firmly believe that this type of event is in the long term best interest of all parties.
Even before the proliferation of untrusted individual reporting becoming trusted (read: blogs) the large news agencies have been blindly trusted by nearly everyone. Everyone is shocked when it's revealed that the reports they read in their papers were outright wrong, or even lies.
Everything we can do to impact every day Joe in a way that gets them thinking critically about news reports will benefit us in the long run. We will, hopefully, become less impacted by propaganda compaigns, as well as less likely to react to news/media reports irrationally and impulsively.
Of course, I admit that this is some kind of massive wishful thinking but, man... wouldn't it be nice to see some random jerk on the street see a newspaper and murmer "I wonder if that's true." instead of "OMG PONIES!?"
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
How, exactly, is mainstream journalism better?
Both local papers here are Canwest Global products and I don't find them any better than a blog or rumour mill. They mix news, editorials, advertorials, advertisements, so-called "special features" and paid product placements all willy-nilly without clear separation.
The good news is, continued antics like this are going to make Jobs bullet-proof. It's the "boy who cried wolf" scenario: pull this prank enough times and nobody will ever believe that Jobs has died, even if he actually does.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Well, let's see how "professional journalism" is doing over at the National Inquirer. Today's headlines:
"Got Gossip? We'll pay big bucks. Click or email us. Click here."
one of the more confusing titles i've seen on /.
BSD is for people who love Unix, Linux is for people who hate Microsoft.
IANAL.
Everyone seems to be missing the point.
Reporting an unsubstantiated rumor about someone and subsequently causing the stock to tank is not criminal, and probably not actionable (civil lawsuit) either.
What the SEC will be investigating is whether the person who created, propagated, or published this rumor stood to profit from it.
Investigating this possibility is well within the responsibilities of the SEC.
It's up to the actual traders to verify unsubstantiated statements such as this before taking any action.
This is silly, in any case. If Apple is so dependent on the health of one person, they have bigger problems than the antics of a few journalists.
What are they going to do when Jobs finally does pop his clogs? Sooner or later, that is going to happen, and they need to think about that now rather than later.
I think the main takeaway from all this nonsense, aside from stupidity on Wall Street for believing anything and everything, is how frighteningly Apple's fortunes are tightly bound to Steve Jobs specifically.
Bill Gates slowly receded from the limelight at Microsoft, and allowed Ballmer and others to grow into their roles the market's mind. Jobs hasn't really done this yet at Apple. Apple has a few shining lights, but the top of the (Apple) tree is still very clearly The Steve.
{ - Generic Guy - }
We get the evidence of this over and over. Information of any kind; speculation; fear; panic; This is no way to base an economy.
We are off of the gold standard -- something that wouldn't fluctuate so badly as this. Not saying whether or not going off the gold standard was a bad idea, I just see that basing the US economy on this is just bad. Money is created and destroyed out of thin air. This is a voodoo magic market and economy. 700 billion won't fix this problem. What it will do is enable people to keep on doing what they did that allows this sort of thing to happen.
he must be expanding the capabilities of the reality distortion field.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
The person who did this is an old journalist and someone who's had problems with stock market advice/manipulation before.
Please don't parrot old media bullshit about this. The problem is not citizen journalism, the problem is that so many people trust the frauds who people old media itself.
Slashdot isn't a "news site." Slashdot simply links to stories at other sites and gives it's users a forum to discuss them. I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them. I still need to consider the source of the story Slashdot links to, any evidence provided to back up the story's claims, and my good 'ol bullshit detector. Having something posted on Slashdot isn't a seal of accuracy.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Face it, the stock market is gambling. You are gambling with your money, betting that the multitude of variables that could come together to clusterfuck your investments don't do that and you get some kind of marginal gain.
Caveat emptor, future stock buyer, caveat emptor.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Maybe, instead of worrying about rumors on these socnet "news" sites, these "journalistic watchdogs" might want to spend a little time thinking about the way mainstream journalism let down a country of more than 300 million by completely missing the fact that a presidential administration started a fucking war based upon nothing but lies and misdirection. Instead of jumping on the wagon and cheerleading this horrible rush to war, they might have checked a few facts themselves before going to print, day after day, week after week, month after month for more than two years.
Yes, it's a horrible thing that Apple's stock price went down by 9 percent (my guess is it will have gained it back by the time the rumor is straightened out). But more than 4,000 American military and a few hundred thousand Iraqi civilians lost their fucking lives thanks to the so-called "real journalists" blowing the biggest story of this century (so far).
Excuse me if I don't get too excited if some nervous bettors lost some money because they listened to an unsourced rumor in a week when the rest of the stock market was going into the tank, too.
Anyway, you'd think that the fact that Steve Jobs has AIDS would be a bigger deal than a heart attack, anyway.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What is going on with news these days? Go to Google's News page and you get blogs and editorials on the page, unnoted!
Epic win: investors pwnt by /b/tards.
Why am I not surprised by the financial mess on Wall Street? Because this level of fact checking accompanied mortgage derivatives as well: some /b/tards got a loans with no actual proof they can pay them back, and then gullible investors bought them.
Is Cowboy Neal still OK?
You are right (I think). I was trying to say is we shouldn't be worried about the investors who lost money as the information needed to better asses the risks is now known. Perhaps one of the exchanges could do their own investigation and bar the potential perpatrators from trading. No need to get the SEC involved and create more taxpayer cost.
Apple's stock price went vertical, losing 9% before Apple stepped in and denied the rumor
Apple stock has been declining for several months now from around $180/share in May. There was nothing unusual in Friday's price movement when compared to the previous two trading days. On Oct 3rd AAPL traded between $98.20 and $106.40 per share, with a daily volume of 12.512M shares traded. On Oct 4th the range was between $95.30 and $102.33, with a volume of 12.739M shares, and Friday it traded between 95.43 and 101.23, and the volume was lighter - with only 11.4M shares traded. This is consistent with the downtrend for the previous 5 months. If you want to buy Apple stock at this point, feel free to become a long term investor.
Although it's understandable that Apple would strive to correct rumors about the health of their founder and CEO as soon as possible, these rumors were NOT the cause of the long term down-trend in Apple stock since May's highs, nor were they the cause of volatility that is completely in line with today's market conditions - especially when you compare the price movement in the stock with Friday's S&P 500 index, they line up almost perfectly with the general sell-off in the whole market that happened immediately after the vote on the financial relief package. People tend to buy the rumor and sell the news. This is nothing special.
I'm sure a handful of bloggers would love to think that they can move the entire stock market, or even a single highly traded stock, so easily, however we traders quickly learn that the market is smarter than all of us, and as the US government is about to find out, it also has more money than any of us, no matter how rich we are.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can't see what all the WP fuss is about, I find WP quick and informative. It has NEVER been ok to cite encyclopedia's in academic papers and there is no such thing as perfect information.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I would be much more concerned if the "established" media always got it right.
And yet a lot of international journalists got it spot on. Why would that be? What is wrong with US media, or is it that global media is distant enough that it can be more analytical?
Anyway, you'd think that the fact that Steve Jobs has AIDS would be a bigger deal than a heart attack, anyway.
If that's not irony (and some sign would be nice), then you're spreading malicious lies, making you every bit as bad as the journalists you castigated.
You were probably being funny though. Ha ha.
But when Matt Drudge does it it's called 'new journalism'. Still bullshit though.
Rule #1: Everyone is bullshitting you, everyone lies all the time for their own advantage.
Rule #2: The internet makes rule #1 more efficient.
People go to CNN for verified, or at least News that CNN stands behind, it's their business model. I just don't see why they had to put their citizen journalism in the CNN brand in the first place, precisely because of the potential for confusion, but I expected the problem to be less clear-cut than this. It's more a branding issue than anything, except fot the SEC angle.
This is why they call our stock market system the "glass house" or "gambling". Someone was trying to play funny with their hand of cards.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Don't forget that a lot of the press and bloggers have built up this whole "Cult of Steve" thing around Apple,treating almost as some mythology where Steve is sitting in his trendy chair designing and approving everything good that comes out of Apple. So I have NO doubt,none at all,that when Steve does die the stock will tank and tank HARD.
In fact the only way I can see for Apple to keep their stock from tanking when Steve dies is to bring back The Woz to take over as president and slowly hand the reins over to his "hand picked" successor. Because the way some of those fanbois act when it comes to Steve and Woz is frankly a little scary.Sadly,in a way,I can kind of see their point. I mean can anybody here honestly say they think the giant sweaty Ballmer monkey is doing anything other than running MSFT straight into the ground? Bill Gates may be a bastard when it comes to business,but he is a smart bastard. Ballmer just comes off as an out of touch buffoon. So who is to say that without Steve to keep it on track that Apple won't go back to sucking like they did in the late 80's-early 90's?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"Slashdot isn't a ``news site.``"
Oh? News for nerds, stuff that matters?
How about this.. would you consider The Druge Report a news site? If so - why? Because it gets referenced a lot? so does slashdot. Because it posts original articles? So does Slashdot...
"Slashdot simply links to stories at other sites" ... no, it's not just links - check out reviews, journal entries getting published to frontpage, etc.
How about Google? That really -is- just links. Would you consider that a news site, though? I know I would. News source not so much, but news site - sure.
"I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them." ;) )
Why would you expect any differently of any other site?
( On a side-note.. facts don't need verification; otherwise they wouldn't be facts, but - in this context - rumors/unsubstantiated statements
"I still need to consider the source of the story Slashdot links to, any evidence provided to back up the story's claims, and my good 'ol bullshit detector."
You should do the same for everything from a geocities website to some random forum to Slashdot to iReport to CNN to AP & Reuters.
"Having something posted on Slashdot isn't a seal of accuracy."
Neither is having something posted on iReport, CNN's main page, or even reported by AP / Reuters.
Yea - Saddam Hussein was a wonderful man and a benevolent ruler.
He only killed 5,000 and maimed 10,000 civilians in Halabja alone.
Shouldn't that be enough?
No - The real tragedy is we are so caught up our own self interests that we allow obscenities like Darfur to continue.
Oh really? Other than the book reviews and journal postings you mentioned - which qualifies Slashdot as a successful blog - I haven't seen much in the way of original articles since Katz left. Even what he did was more along the lines of an opinion piece. Not what I would call "news."
I see, we're getting caught up in words.
If Google gathers together news articles produced by other sources, and presents them as a collection of news from top agencies, they are an aggregator. I don't really consider them a "news site," because they don't (as far as I know) employ reporters who go out and gather news. They don't produce original news content. If they put a New York Times story on their front page, it is my impression of the Times' credibility that will determine whether or not I take what is reported as factual.
Well, I think CNN and the Washington Post other sites whose business is to sell eyeballs to advertisers are probably pretty careful about protecting themselves from libel suits, and spend a non-trivial sum of money checking the things they report as facts. They may not always get it right, and we may not always agree that they represent those facts objectively, but their reputation heavily influences the amount they are able to charge people to advertise in the dead-tree versions of their publications.
So yes, I think some sites put a lot more effort in to verifying facts than your average "citizen journalism" blog.
Because the geocities website and random forum put the same resources in to checking the accuracy of what they report as CNN and Reuters? Nice try. Let's compromise with "maintain a healthy skepticism."
True, but I'll put AP, Reuters and even CNN's record up against some random blog any day, because they have earned at least some credibility. So have some blogs, and more will. You make a name for yourself by having a reputation for always being right, because you always check your facts. Get caught running with something you weren't sure of just to get attention and your credibility will be shot. That's what the big news sites have that the random blog doesn't - a reputation worth protecting.
I don't care why you're posting AC
"What're you doing with a knife?"
"Whadya mean? Trade faster with a knife. Everybody trades faster with a knife. Pshhh."
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
What encyclopaedias are good for is getting lists of sources you can cite when looking for general/further information on a subject.
I don't actually see any problem here. If it's a rumor and is disproven quickly, then even if the stock price bumps a little, it is completely innocent to the investors.
If you are real investor, you probably have longer time scale than hours (like years) to think about your stock. It could only affect speculators (the gamblers), which is maybe even a good thing.
Also, you could say that the share price won't return to the same level. But it's completely irrational to sell long-term investment based on few hours old rumor, so again, this only hurts people who deserve to be hurt. Someone else will buy the depressed stock instead after rumor is explained, and the price will return to its original value.
I'm curious, do you see any inherent value in replying to yourself with five different accounts, pretending that anyone on Slashdot still doesn't know what you're doing, and posting timeless gems like "Ha ha. Sleep tight MicroTards"?
Just you know, curious.
I am really surprised by most of the posts. People seem to forget that the top prize in journalism, the Pulitzer prize, is named after the man who was most noted for creating yellow journalism. He proved that a paper could survive much better on sensationalism than on investigative reporting (to be fair, he also did the latter). Every news source should be taken with a grain of salt. Newspapers and journalists have been known to stretch the truth to promote their own agenda.
STFU, Twitter.
Well, the problem with citizen journalism is that, pretty much by definition, you don't know who's who. It could be
- a concerned citizen who's done his research, but equally it could be
- a traditional journalist trying to get more street cred to his newspaper views (see the story about that guy editing Wikipedia about naked shorting,)
- an idiot talking out the arse,
- a zealot on some holy crusade, and who already found his "Truth" and all that remains is to spread the word to the ignorant masses. And for whom no lies, fallacies, FUD, disinformation or hyperboles are too low to be used in that holy goal. (And not just lonely nerds. Whole think-tanks exist who make propaganda their only mission.)
- a paranoid schizophrenic who takes his own imagination for reality (and I mean paranoid schizophrenia as in, the medical meaning: the kind that comes with realistic delusions),
- a shill (PR disguised as news, astroturfing and pseudo-word-of-mouth buzz-building are still popular devices),
- someone trying to manipulate another company's stock (own before selling some, or the stock of someone he wants to buy stock in),
- a joker who isn't funny enough to be clear that he's joking (just look on Snopes for some fine examples of joke news which then got taken seriously by too many people. Or I've seen at least one serious article, which linked to a The Onion story as source,)
Etc, etc, etc.
So going, essentially, "yeah, well, but that was one of the _other_ guys, trust us not him" is handwaving, as long as you can't tell who's who. For the outside guy, they all look the same. And they all claim they're the genuine article, and some _others_ are the ones you shouldn't trust.
Even reputation, people linking to it, posts confirming it, etc, are meaningless. For a start, we're in the golden age of sockpuppets. Also, things which are blatantly false for anyone with even a modicum of education, routinely get modded up "Informative" even on Slashdot, and conversely textbook quotes routinely get modded down. Or look at how "pundits" like Dvorak make a living and are read by a ton of people as great IT information, even though he's the same guy who had a whole article along the lines of, "my idle process in windows is using up 99% of the CPU cycles! That's why my windows is sluggish!"
Journalism reputation (online or old press, equally) is more of a question of saying the things a given crowd wants to hear, than anything even vaguely resembling truth value or quality. Or a matter of sounding like some knowledgeable guy giving a free lecture, even if you don't actually know jack shit about the topic. Again, see half those IT "pundits", but also a good number of posts right here on Slashdot.
Even credentials are routinely faked (see, 14 year old kids posing as some Ph.D.) or bought. Either from some diploma mill, or just finding someone with a Ph.D. title to sign your PR piece. Corporate PR uses the latter kind quite extensively. There'll always be someone who doesn't have much of a good name to lose, and will take your 30 silvers to give science the kiss of death. Even with tongue, if you pay extra.
So who _do_ you trust in a medium where for each 1 genuine citizen journalist, there are 99 fakes?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Let's assume people would get a huge banner saying "this is not verified in any way". Do you seriously expect this to matter for more than a few months? We want it all and we want it now. And if it's on the Internet, it must be true.
On the plus side, humanity always adapted to the latest stupidity. It just takes 5-100 years, depending on what example you choose.
Yea - Saddam Hussein was a wonderful man and a benevolent ruler.
He only killed 5,000 and maimed 10,000 civilians in Halabja alone.
Shouldn't that be enough?
No - The real tragedy is we are so caught up our own self interests that we allow obscenities like Darfur to continue.
Why is it that so many american seem to think like that?
"His cruel deeds must end!"
"Okay, let's force him to end him by numerous ways. For example, the whole country is economically very dependant on others. It knows it has very limited amount of military in case it goes to it so I am sure that the tyrant will rather negotiate than be executed...
"No! No negotiations! let's invade. That's the only solution"
"But... We already began negotiating. He has already let the weapon inspectors in and..."
"No! Let's invade, destroy all the social structures, leave numerous cities without electricity or food, throw the country into a civil war..."
"Do you ever wonder why the rest of the world hates you?"
Okay, very well, so we make the distinction that if you're an actual news source business, then you're held to different standards. Fine by me. Now for the next question, then. CNN is clearly affiliated or even owns iReport, but does that automatically make iReport a credible news source as would the main CNN website be? Should it? If so - why?
Because the Simpsons are full of hoaxing and pranking, right? Oh, you must mean Fox News. I suppose it's easy for you to think that they are the only source of biased news when they are the only major news outlet not singing in the Obama choir. Enjoy the coming Jimmy Carter II presidency, knucklehead. You deserve it.
My dad used to say, "believe none of what you hear, half of what you read, and everything that you see."
I think people need to take more responsibility for what they think is real. Currently people believe everything that they read, be it FOX "news" CNN, political ads, car dealers, commercials, etc. "Citizen Journalists" are no less honest or motivated by self interest than any other entity, they are just smaller.
We need to get to a place where pundits, news, politicians, and everyone else are, by default, considered biased and everything they say needs to be double checked.
The notion of "unbiased" news is an artifact of the later 20th century and people like FOX news have been exploiting people's misplaced trust for too long. I would LOVE to see a prison time for bloggers, news agencies, and politicians for knowingly making false statements intended for public distribution.
Except that's a highly subjective and inaccurate thing, as I was saying about moderation and reputation. My bullshit detector says that anything contradicting my existing bias is bullshit, and anything which confirms that bias must be true.
E.g., as a purely random and made-up example, an argument about socialized healthcare will register as "bullshit to justify stealing _my_ money" for the stereotypical die-hard right-winger, and as "damn right" for the stereotypical left-winger. An argument to cut down on healthcare and welfare and give more money to the rich, will be seen exactly the other way around.
E.g., "we're to blame 100% for the climate change and a bunch of people should die or live like in the middle ages to protect the planet" will register as "damn right" through the stereotypical carbon-cultist's "bullshit detector", and as "damn self-hating hippies are selling us their bullshit doomsday scenario again" by the stereotypical GW denialist. Conversely, an opinion column saying basically, "no, it's not happening and NASA has been massaging the raw data to create the impression of an accelerated climate change", will register as the exact opposite for both.
And yes, I'm talking extremes of either view here, for example sake.
Is either right or wrong about it? In effect they're both using their existing biases as "bullshit detector". It's not as much detecting bullshit as self-reinforcement. A news source or piece of news seems reliable, if it tells you or me what we want to hear.
And what do you do for news that don't even fit that? Stuff like that Steve Jobs had a heart attack, which is what we're talking about here, doesn't easily fit any ideology. (Except maybe for a couple of extreme pro- or anti-Apple fanboys.) It's not obvious what kind of a bullshit detector could call that BS. It's stuff that _could_ happen. People die of heart attacks every day.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I visited the iReport site for the first time when I saw this story. Other than a "what's on CNN" type video feed, I didn't see much else that would lead me to believe it was affiliated with CNN. Even the "about" link states:
"The views and content on this site are solely those of the iReport.com contributors. CNN makes no guarantees about the content or the coverage on iReport.com!"
So I think they are being pretty careful to avoid putting the "CNN" stamp on anything that is reported on this site. If the URL was ireport.cnn.com or something, I think people would be justifiably confused.
I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that Wall Street reacted so quickly on a rumour posted by some anonymous person on a public forum. I don' think it besmirches "citizen journalists," any more than the average supermarket gossip rag besmirches regular journalists. You will always find examples of abuse; that's where the "healthy skeptisism" part comes in.
I think it speaks volumes about the people on Wall Street though.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Maybe, instead of worrying about rumors on these socnet "news" sites, these "journalistic watchdogs" might want to spend a little time thinking about the way mainstream journalism let down a country of more than 300 million by completely missing the fact that a presidential administration started a fucking war based upon nothing but lies and misdirection. Instead of jumping on the wagon and cheerleading this horrible rush to war, they might have checked a few facts themselves before going to print, day after day, week after week, month after month for more than two years.
What ever happened to investigative journalism? The kind of stuff that shut down McCarthy and broke Watergate? These days it seems that "journalists" are afraid to make waves.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Doesn't this nullify all the Apple mystique developed by them over the past thirty years? That they are a corporate community of driven, intelligent, and advanced people working together to build a new exciting and better future? If that were really true then what difference would it make whether the current leader passes on? Isn't the corporation a dynamic unity of the focused applied pure mental brilliance?
Well, it would appear not. It's a clusterfuck of neurotic grade-point angels fluttering around the whims of a single obsessive-compulsive dictator. Kind of like the Soviet Union without all the people with less than a B+ average in school.
The real question about Apple is whether Steven Jobs will take the entire company down with him when he inevitably goes insane. Consider it a parallel to Mao launching the Cultural Revolution after slipping into the dementia stage of tertiary syphilis, thus destroying the economy and lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese people for a generation.
Its a content site, nto a carrier, so it bears responsibility. Maybe that will help to clear up some of this web garbage.
I understand that's the case from an academic viewpoint, but who researches everything to the Nth degree? WP gives a good rundown on a wide variety of subjects and links the subjects together, statements of fact are backed by citations. The contraversial will attract vandals and astroturf but I can live with that since it's free and the vast majority of it's content is not contraversial.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
nice waste a space twit
Of course its a problem with "citizen Journalists". They don't know well enough to do any research on the subjects they report on. Further more, neither does their audience. Of even more pressing concern, is that more traditional forms of media are following their lead to report sooner with less fact checking.
ireport is a joke. It makes Cnn look like my po-dunk newspaper when it asks people with a 3rd grade education about what they think should be done to fix the economy.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
How could you possibly take CNN serious anyway?
You miss the fact that iReport.com is:
A) Linked to from the main CNN page, and
B) Has its highlights shown on the main CNN page.
I'm generally a pretty skeptical person, but if you trust CNN, (not that I personally do) then the iReport stuff comes off as pretty trustworthy. It's mixed in with the rest of the news stories there.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor