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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."
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...).
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!
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IranAir Flight 655 never forget!