See here. They bring up this business about the former CFO of Pixar getting into hot water over options backdating and then try a Hillary-esque “guilt by association” thing saying that isn’t it weird that all these people so close to me are in trouble and what could this mean and hoo boy is Jobs in trouble? Which is ridiculous and the article itself quotes some professor saying, “It is also possible that Jobs is clean, or that it is impossible to find a smoking gun against him. `In fairness to Jobs, maybe it just wasn’t there,’ said Wayne State professor Henning. `It may just be that you cannot make the case against him.'”
Maybe it just wasn’t there. Yeah. Maybe. You think? Naturally that is the very last paragraph of the story. Katie tells me that in the world of yellow journalism this is called “the cover-your-ass graf.” You write fifty column inches filled with winks and nods and sly hints and dirty innuendo — and then at the end you say, very explicitly, “Of course Mr. So-and-so has never been charged with anything and there is absolutely no actual evidence to suggest he’s ever done anything wrong. Which is why we we just wasted your time with fifty column inches suggesting he’s a serial killer even though there is no reason to believe that this is true.”
Why do hacks play this game? For one thing, it drives clicks, and clicks sell ads. But for another thing, well, if I were the kind of person who plays the guilt-by-association game, which I’m not, but if I were, I might point out that the possibility exists that short-sellers might encourage various online “business publications” to print certain things which might knock down stock prices and enable short-sellers to perhaps profit from the decline. I’m just saying. The possibility exists. Though to be sure there is absolutely no evidence that anyone at MarketWatch has ever done anything like that and I do not for a minute believe that short-sellers have anything to do with articles containing baseless allegations and innuendoes about me being a bad guy. I really don’t. Honestly. Not at all. I have the highest respect for MarketWatch. I believe it is a fine publication with a stellar reputation for honesty and integrity. Peace out.
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