Bloomberg is reporting that investigators have determined that the fake “Steve Job’s heart attack” story that made it onto CNN’s iReport site was planted by a an 18-year old teenager.
They found no evidence that the teen attempted to profit from the sharp drop in Apple’s stock that occurred after Silicon Alley Insider picked up the story.
This is one of those situations that really make bloggers and all “citizen-journalists” look bad. I realize this kid wasn’t a blogger – but whenever a story like this makes the rounds it shines a bad light on anyone that isn’t from a mainstream media outlet (although one could argue it was the connection to mainstream media outlet CNN that truly caused the problem).
