iReport's One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch

A report on CNN's citizen-journalism iReport service claims that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack—so blogged Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb. The post Sarah linked to is no longer available on iReport, which supports her claim that it was false.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

I can't verify the report, since it is gone. Here's what Sarah found from alleged iReporter johntw:

Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven't seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it.

Her post is stamped 6:56 a.m., presumably Pacific Daylight Time, which would put johntw's iReport sometime earlier this morning. Silicon Alley's Henry Blodgett says that CNN pulled the iReport entry "about 20 minutes after we published Apple's denial," or around 10:15 a.m. EDT. The denial came from Katie Cotton, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Communications,

Katie is about as close as PR professionals ever get to their chief executives. You'd swear she was physically attached, since pretty much wherever Steve goes Katie is there, too. If he was in the ambulance, so would she be. Were there hospital noises on the other end of the phone, Henry?

My initial reaction is about the same as Henry's: Possible stock manipulation. "We expect this will lead to an SEC investigation," he wrote.

Apple already was having a bad stock week that seemingly couldn't get any worse. On Monday, with most tech stocks down after the House rejected the $700 billion bailout bill, Apple shares plunged almost 18 percent to close at $105.26, Bad got worse: The stock closed yesterday at $100.10. Today in early trading, following johntw's iReport, Apple's share price fell to as low as $94.65; since, it climbed to above $104, as of this posting.

Few other CEOs are so identified with their companies as Steve Jobs. There is direct correlation to his well being and Apple's, which is evidenced by share price dips whenever there are concerns about his health. It's easy to see how someone might intentionally, or being misled by a third party, manipulate Apple shares through a report about Steve's health.

The question: Who's telling the truth, and what's their motivation? It's easy to reject anonymous johntw's report when there's a denial from Katie Cotton. My inclination is to assume that he was mistaken, misguided or misled. But I'm bugged by something else. Katie is well known in the PR community for being quite protective of her boss, whose health is shrouded in mystery. In July, I explained why Steve's health matters and why Apple and other public companies must offer annual reports about the health of the chief executive. Heck, the President of the United States does, why not the CEOs of public companies?

I know how much famous people loathe paparazzi hanging around. But this would be a really good time for Apple to encourage the paparazzi to sneak around and post photos of a healthy Steve Jobs leaving his house or going to the office. No doubt, some of them have staked out local hospitals just in case. Given Apple's past secrecy about Steve's health, I want more than just Katie's denial before accepting the report was false. She also knows that Steve's fate is tied to the company's.

Then there is johntw, who is going from anonymity to infamy. Henry and Sarah were both critical of CNN, she more so. CNN isn't the problem but anonymity. None of these iReporters should be anonymous. Journalists aren't anonymous, because there needs to be accountability. Particularly when reporting about public companies, journalists have a dutiful responsibility to accurately report the news. Citizen-journalists may not understand the enormity of their reports, particularly when RSS feeds, tweets and fast-moving search indexes can rapidly spread what they write. Like professional journalists, amateurs need to be accountable, too, and that's much more difficult when they are anonymous.

How seriously would you take an anonymous report about a Steve Jobs' heart attack posted to, say, a Yahoo Finance investor's forum? Anonymity would make the post suspect. CNN's brand added credibility to johntw's anonymous report, even if only briefly. I've long opposed anonymous posts of any kind. If it were my choice, there would be no anonymous commenting to this blog or to Microsoft Watch.

According to fictional TV character Dr. Gregory House, "Everybody lies." I don't believe that. But I do question the truthfulness of the anonymous, because they hide. Now why is that?

[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]

Posted by Joe Wilcox on October 3, 2008 12:58 PM