In August, Bloomberg News prematurely declared Steve Jobs dead. In fact, he was still very much alive, and Bloomberg had merely published the Apple CEO's 17-page obituary by accident. Nevertheless, it left employees, the technology community, and shareholders a bit jittery. Then last week, CNN erroneously reported almost the same thing! Except this wasn't a matter of Wolf Blitzer getting punk'd by a source — it was a matter of its citizen journalism site iReport.com posting an anonymous item claiming Jobs suffered a heart attack. Also not true. But that didn't matter to shareholders, who sent Apple's stock price plummeting when the tech blogs picked up on the rumor and before the company could shoot down the claim and reassure everyone. (Shares rebounded by day's end, though they ended down three percent.) As it turns out, a one "Johntw" posted the report, and now he's sort of in serious trouble. Because CNN, it appears, does not like being made a fool, so they've turned over Johntw's computer trail to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Say what you will about media organizations protecting your sources, but it's a mantra even we hold true: Lie to us and we'll out you. So we fully support CNN's decision to help identify Johntw, which it might not have a legal obligation — in this case, CNN acted as an Internet service provider, who's not responsible for things other people post on its site — but probably a moral, and public relations-y, one to do so.

And if they do find out who this Johntw is? He could face fines, prison time, and a canceled iTunes account.

[AP, Wired]