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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."
Honestly, obama should credit his entire campaign to this type of reporting and the inability or unwillingness of real journalists to ask honest, tough questions about him. be afraid. be very afraid.
Oh come on!
A concert of the entire Western media trumpeted an impending attack by weapons of mass destruction. We were 45 minutes away from having our major cities razed to the ground. On that basis we embarked on a calamitous war causing millions of deaths, destroying the oldest civillisation on Earth and ultimately resulting in the decline of a major superpower and gutting the global economy.
I don't think exaggerated rumours by one voice about Steve Jobs really hold a candle to the tragedy resulting from systematic disinformation.
Perhaps the reporter also had 'bad intelligence'.
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!
Funny as hell
What a bunch of maroons. But somebody did make a small bundle, no doubt.
What?
And maybe it will be Dirty Harry Reid -- for doing the same thing: opens mouth, inserts both feet and falls on his ass. Check this out http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/companies/insurance_stocks/?postversion=2008100308 He and others of his ilk are mostly to blame for the mess we're in now. We ought to fire all of our congress critters and pull names out of the phone book. Probably get more for our tax dollars then.
Deal with it and get over it. If the Republicans had an ounce of competence and a shred of integrity, Obama wouldn't stand a chance.
Let's be honest here. Barack Obama will be the next president. However, once he's elected and has to do more than just read of a teleprompter, his popularity will drop to the point that there will be a republican majority in congress in 2010. At that point, gridlock will occur and everyone wins. At this point, the best thing he could do is die in a plane crash/be assassinated. Expectations for him are so high that he has to fail.
If by some chance John McCain does win, he'll enact the same liberal policies as Barack Obama (the exception being Iraq), however, there won't be anyone opposing him.