A teenager may be behind a bogus story posted on CNN’s public-journalism Web site earlier this month that said Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack and was being rushed to the hospital.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission immediately launched an investigation into the false story posted by “Johntw” on CNN’s iReport.com after the news caused Apple’s stock to plunge nearly six percent that day, from $106.50 to $94.65.
A teenager is to blame, according to Bloomberg News, which cited two unnamed sources “with knowledge of the matter” who did not want to be identified because the “probe isn’t public.”
The teenager did not post the story to CNN’s site as a way to affect Apple’s stock or for financial gain, according to Bloomberg.
“When [the SEC] asked us for certain information when all of this went down in the beginning, we coordinated with them in compliance with policy and closed the file on the matter,” said CNN spokesperson Jennifer Martin.
Other than that, Martin said the company has not been in touch with the SEC and has no additional information about the poster, including age and sex.
Citizen Journalism
CNN’s iReport site was criticized for its citizen-journalism service, which allows people to post news that is unedited.
The day of the incident, CNN’s Martin said the company had no plans to change the openness of iReport.com. Martin went on to say that the spirit of iReport is that it is unedited and uncensored.
iReport is considered by CNN as a valuable source of information, and CNN uses a percentage of the content provided by users. CNN.com or CNN News ran 1,500 stores from the 21,000 user-generated stories posted to iReport.com last month, Martin said.
Any content pulled from iReport and used by CNN is fully vetted, Martin added. Since the incident occurred, CNN has…