Steve Jobs’ fake death hits Wikipedia in seconds
August 29th, 2008 by Wendy McAuliffe
It’s the stuff that editorial nightmares are made of - publishing someone’s obituary before they have snuffed it. Well poor old Steve jobs had his 17-page obituary published by the Bloomberg financial newswire last night, even if it was just for 30 seconds! The mistake was of course retracted, and a full account of events can be read on Gawker.
But even more astonishing is the speed at which Steve Jobs’ name was added to the Wikipedia round-up of premature obituaries. There’s no hanging around in the world of social media! The listing could almost instantly be viewed here, along with the names of other people who were mistakingly written off as dead including Pope John Paul II (who was the subject of three premature obituaries), Alfred Nobel (who later went on to create the Nobel Peace Prize), Fidel Castro (where Ronald Reagan’s had been used as a template) and Humphrey the Downing Street Cat!
The Bloomberg gaff reinforces the universality of newswires. According to sources, the mis-published obituary crossed the newswires and was picked up within the 30 seconds it was live for. Online authority is so important, and once news breaks, it is nigh on impossible to retrace your steps and cover things up. One tiny comment can mushroom into hiroshima within a matter of hours - so be warned!
Tags: apple, bloomberg, obituary, steve jobs
