Last week, Apple stock plunged 10 percent to its lowest point in a year after a story on CNN's "citizen journalism" website ireport.com claimed that CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack. (He didn't.) Now the SEC is investigating the story to see if it was planted to intentionally to deflate Apple's price.
The iReport story isn't the only recent editorial flub that's had serious repercussions in the increasingly jittery business world: United Airlines' stock plummeted to $3 from $12.50 after a 2002 story about the company's bankruptcy was accidentally posted on Bloomberg as an up-to-date story.