Last Friday, What’s Trending tweeted—erroneously—that Steve Jobs had passed away. Which sent the internet into a frenzy! The tweet was deleted minutes after it was published. But how did it get out there in the first place?
https://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-just-thought-steve-jobs-died-updated-5838845
Disrupt Group (which run What’s Trending) co-founder Shira Lazar appeared at the top of today’s What’s Trending show and issued an apology and explained what happened. Sort of. According to Shira, a junior staffer sent the unconfirmed tweet and that the tweet was retracted within a minute. Shira went on to say, “who did it or how it happened no longer matters” calling the incident a “terrible and unfortunate one.”
Shira apologized to Steve Jobs, his family, friends, and to their former partner CBS News. Shira promised that What’s Trending would follow the highest standards in journalism with verified and substantiated news.
That probably starts with no more junior staffers with itchy trigger fingers manning the Twitter feed.
