Why Steve Jobs is Princess Diana

Back in the day, I used to be a reporter covering the Royal Family. Before the Paris car crash put an end to it all, there was much fun and games as the tabloids fought for readers by printing anything and everything about Diana.

Sometimes, when things were slow, reporters even (gasp) made things up because they knew that back then, particularly when the war of the Waleses between Diana and Charles was at its height, there was next to no chance of an official rebuttal. So rumours and speculation were written up as fact and such facts became historical truth from repetition.

I am NOT saying that Gizmodo's Jesus Diaz was making things up when he reported that Steve Jobs pulled out of his Macworld keynote speech next week because of ill health. But his posting, given the seriousness of what he is saying, seems pretty flimsy. This is what he wrote (his bold):

"According to a previously reliable source, Apple misrepresented the reasons behind Macworld and Jobs's keynote cancellation. Allegedly, the real cause is his rapidly declining health. In fact, it may be even worse than we imagined:

"Steves health is rapidly declining. Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs letting the hype destroy apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.

"This strategic loss will be less of a bang with investors. This is why Macworld is a no-go anymore. No more Steve means no more hype. Saying they are no longer needing [Macworld] is the cover designed by the worldwide "loyalty" department.

"This source has repeatedly been 100% correct before. Those times, however, were always related to news and images of unreleased Apple products. I can only hope that, in this more personal matter, it is absolutely wrong. And that if he is not, that sentence just means that Steve Jobs is retiring according to his plan.

"While Steve Jobs's health is nobody's business - not the press, not investors, not the public - we believe that there's a line between saying "no-comment" and plainly misleading - once again the public."

As you would expect Apple's shares took quite a hit from this posting and fell about 2 per cent. Later, when others questioned it and authoritative Apple commentator Jim Goldman from CNBC said it was rubbish, the shares recovered most of their value.

But the truth is that we simply do not know what is correct. Not Jesus Diaz and not Jim Goldman, who can only say that that he was told by Apple sources that the reasons for Jobs not appearing were unchanged from before ie Apple was pulling out of Macworld because the company didn't see the need to continue its investment in the expo, which included Steve Jobs's keynote.

Publicly, Apple, which has turned its royal family-esque "Never Complain, Never Explain" stance into an art form, would only say this via a spokesman: "If ever Steve or the board of directors decided that he was no longer capable of doing his job as CEO of Apple, I'm sure they will let you know." That's as clear as mud, then.

Now there are arguments to be had about Jobs's right to be keep his private life private versus Apple's responsibilities to its shareholders to disclose information relevant to its stock price. Apple execs know that if they manipulate the price by misleading the public, they could go to jail.

But the reality is that as with Princess Diana, websites can print rumours as fact (the headline on the Gizmodo posting was "Steve Jobs' Health Declining Rapidly, Reason for Macworld Cancellation") because there is no downside in an information vacuum. They don't get corrected for getting it wrong and might just be right.

Apple is presumably not happy about this but because it has forsaken the path of full disclosure, it has to live with it and the unwelcome turbulence in the stock price. Only time will tell if Gizmodo, which in most ways is an excellent site, is wrong about this report, posted, I am sure, in good faith. And so we wait eagerly for the next Steve Jobs health story and because next week is Macworld, I am certain we will not have to wait long.

In the meantime, this headline from VentureBeat illustrates just how daft this scenario has become:

Local yogurt store tells blogger that Steve Jobs is “in great health”

Now just delete Steve Jobs and insert Diana and you have a headline from the tabloids circa 1995 (ignore the blogger bit). See what I mean?

(photo Jose Manuel Ribeiro/Reuters)

Comments

[Jim Stead]

My take is that this kind of thing is not due to an under-supply of information. It is due to an over-supply of bloggers, pundits, and "journalists". With luck the recession will help out there.

[Ian Kemmish]

"Apple is presumably not happy about this". Why presume that? There's a clear "social contract" between Apple and the media, and it's one which produces these gyrations in share price. Apple could change the terms of this contract any time they wanted, but they choose not to. As is their prerogative, of course.