In a stunning example of a journalistic screwup, financial news wire service Bloomberg published Steve Jobs’ obituary Wednesday. The Apple cofounder and CEO is very much alive.
It’s common procedure for news organizations to pre-write obituaries for politicians, sports figures and titans of business, but the premature release of Jobs’ obituary is stunning because Jobs has been struggling with pancreatic cancer.
Bloomberg quickly issued a retraction, which neglected to note the seriousness of the blunder or even that the story was about Jobs. The retraction said in its entirety: “An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted.”
Is He ‘Cured’?
The Gawker blog, which originally reported the mistake, noted that, “Jobs’ battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation.”
Jobs’ only public discussion of the subject came in a 2004 commencement address at Stanford, where he said, “No one wants to die. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”
He told the graduates that he had been diagnosed with a tumor on his pancreas and that his doctors gave him six months to live. Later that day, a biopsy revealed he had a rare form of cancer treatable with surgery. “I had the surgery and I’m fine now,” Jobs told his audience, adding, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
‘Private Matter’
But a New York Times column in July revealed that Jobs had been diagnosed with the cancer nine months before he had the surgery, and that he had been hoping to cure himself with…