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Understand that Engadget is our sister blog, a star in the AOL constellation, with great writers that push the envelope every day to bring readers the very latest, hottest tech news. Yesterday, that drive came back to bite them in the ass when, acting on a tip from a reliable source, they blogged, and then were forced to retract, a story that the Apple iPhone rollout was going to be delayed.Unfortunately, in the interval, Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s stock lost an estimated $4 billion in about six minutes. Within half an hour of the blog's retraction, the stock had recovered almost its full value.
The Engadget writer was very upfront about how he came to the story (a spoof email circulated internally at Apple) and posted the document that led to his story.
Nonetheless, a lot of people lost a great deal of money selling on the decline, and some are openly speculating that the memo was an attempt to game the market.
With huge money on the line, look for this story to gain traction. Part of the discussion will inevitably revolve around the reporting of Engadget. While it's not my place to defend their decision, I would remind readers that the blogosphere is not print media. For better or worse, what we offer is immediacy, and the drive to push interesting content, especially from seemingly-impeccable sources, runs strong through us.
Engadget's experience is a sobering reminder for all of us that the market is a hypersensitive beast, and the easy reaction to such an incident would be to temper our enthusiasm.
The hard reaction would be to accept that, in our drive to bring you information ASAP, give it context and project its impact, we will, hopefully very rarely, find our feet taken out from under us. I, for one, will continue on the hard path, because I think that's our job; to lead, despite the risks.
If you want info that's been well-aged and fly-specked – that's what The Towel is for.
Nonetheless, a lot of people lost a great deal of money selling on the decline, and some are openly speculating that the memo was an attempt to game the market.
With huge money on the line, look for this story to gain traction. Part of the discussion will inevitably revolve around the reporting of Engadget. While it's not my place to defend their decision, I would remind readers that the blogosphere is not print media. For better or worse, what we offer is immediacy, and the drive to push interesting content, especially from seemingly-impeccable sources, runs strong through us.
Engadget's experience is a sobering reminder for all of us that the market is a hypersensitive beast, and the easy reaction to such an incident would be to temper our enthusiasm.
The hard reaction would be to accept that, in our drive to bring you information ASAP, give it context and project its impact, we will, hopefully very rarely, find our feet taken out from under us. I, for one, will continue on the hard path, because I think that's our job; to lead, despite the risks.
If you want info that's been well-aged and fly-specked – that's what The Towel is for.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-18-2007 @ 1:06AM
Just zis guy, see said...
" I would remind readers that the blogosphere is not print media."
Good to hear that. I'd hate for anyone to confuse bloggers with journalists.
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
5-18-2007 @ 7:03AM
Ruhayat said...
Right. To summarise what you're saying: "In the blogosphere, no one is accountable and we can print outright lies without having to apologise if we feel like it." That about right? So bloggers are just *playing* at being real journalists? Okay. Thanks for clarifying..
5-18-2007 @ 9:48PM
Neurotic Nomad said...
An accurate report about an inaccurate e-mail is still an accurate report. They reported that they received an e-mail and the e-mail was from Apple's internal e-mail system. This part is 100% true. They reported the contents of the e-mail. The summary of the e-mail accurately reflected the contents of the e-mail.
The error is in the implication that because the internal e-mail said it... it must be true.
Had they stuck to the facts (yes there was an e-mail, and yes it said these things), then the story would have been a 100% true report of a fake e-mail.