Bloomberg gaffe - Apple's Steve Jobs is not dead

In late August the venerated Bloomberg News discovered that it was definitely not immune to electronic transmission errors. On August 27, the international news service mistakenly shot up to its wire service a draft (and incomplete) obituary for Apple CEO and galactic PC icon Steve Jobs. The gaffe was quickly discovered and instantly retracted, but not before recipients had captured the text and posted it on the Gawker blog.

The pre-development of obits for major business, political and social figures is a common long-time practice of major news agencies, and the Bloomberg publishing mistake was not the first time this has happened. It does, however, eloquently underscore the downside dangers of instantaneous communication capacities and the urgent need for internal safeguards.

While such lapses can be passed off as innocent mistakes, the Jobs posting had a little bit of a darker side, as major business media reported earlier this year that Jobs did not disclose a potentially mortal battle with pancreatic cancer for some nine months earlier in this decade. The same accounts openly asked whether this nondisclosure might represent a possible violation of SEC rules (or least the intent of same), since Apple is a publicly traded company.

The lesson? Think twice before clicking "send."