RSS
CNN’s Social Media Backfires With False Steve Jobs Story
By Daya Baran at October 05, 2008 1 Comments
CNN’s foray into social media backfired when one of the debut posts turned out to be a bogus report claiming that Apple’s boss, Steve Jobs, had suffered a heart attack.
Apple shares fell as much as 5.4% percent after the post appeared on CNN’s iReport.com and circulated around the Web at warp speed. Apple shares rebounded after a company spokesman released a statement saying that the story was false.
The SEC is investigating the matter to determine whether the posting was intended to push down Apple’s stock price. CNN is cooperating with the probe but has no plans to review its procedures for placing content on the iReport Web site, said Jennifer Martin, CNN a spokeswoman.
CNN disabled the user’s account and said it tried unsuccessfully to contact the individual.
CNN, Fox, and MSNBC have all added interactive features to connect with their audiences on the Web in an effort to capture advertising dollars shifting from TV to the Web.
CNN’s iReport is a news wiki for “unedited, unfiltered news” and said it “makes no guarantee about the content or coverage.” MSNBC’s is called FirstPerson, and Fox News’ is called UReport.
“News organizations are really getting squeezed and so it’s incumbent on them to be looking for ways to engage citizens in the process. The event underscores the need for news organizations to verify content generated by users before it is published,” said William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Recently, a six-year-old article on the 2002 bankruptcy of UAL Corp. was picked up by Google and investors lost $1 billion. In June, Yahoo shares surged after a technology blog said acquisition talks with Microsoft had resumed. The report was later contradicted by CNBC and the shares came crashing down.
The iReport story was further exacerbated when a former wall street analyst who was charged and banned from the securities industry posted the false story on his blog to capitalize on the traffic the story was getting.
“It can be a very powerful influence when harnessed the right way, but sometimes it goes awry as it clearly did in this case,” said Grueskin.
Labels: cnn, social media, Steve Jobs
One Comment
Although I’m a supporter of using blogs and other social media as a means to share information and ideas, this article raises the issue of the validity of the information being shared. Who is saying what and can it be trusted as reliable and true? In cases like this, unmonitored forums like UReport are a potential breeding ground for misinformation that could have detrimental effects on others. I think it’s best if companies like major news networks stuck to letting their own bonafide reporters tell the stories and not their audience.