If you have every questioned the power of Google, consider this: United Airlines lost 76% of its value the other day due to the supposed re-posting (or careless reading) of a six-year-old Chicago Tribune article about the firm’s 2002 bankruptcy filing.
According to the New York Times, a reporter for Income Securities Advisors in Miami found the article on The Sun-Sentinel, and then posted it to Bloomberg news, inciting a false bankruptcy report. From the NYTimes:
Richard Lehmann, the founder of Income Securities, said the company’s reporter discovered the article during a routine search on Google for information about bankruptcy filings in 2008. A link to the old Chicago Tribune article appeared as the first search item, bearing a current date, not its original date, Mr. Lehmann said. When the reporter clicked on the link, it navigated to the United Airlines article on the front page of the Sun-Sentinel Web site, next to a radar map showing the location of Hurricane Ike, Mr. Lehmann said.
The Tribune Company, which distributes news to papers including the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, denied any liability:
“A Chicago Tribune story written in December 2002 regarding the United Airlines bankruptcy filing that year was apparently picked up by an investment advisory and research firm and republished as though it was current,” said a Tribune Company statement released Monday.
“The story was located in the archive section of the website of the Sun Sentinel in South Florida. The story contains information that would clearly lead a reader to the conclusion that it was related to events in 2002. In addition, the comments posted along with the story are dated 2002.”
The Sun-Sentinel’s Deputy Managing Editor-Interactive was then consulted:
Joseph Schwerdt, deputy managing editor-interactive for the Sun-Sentinel, said internal tracking records show that no one had opened the original story file since 2003. The story would have been available via a search on the site, but no one outside the paper should have had access to the story file, Schwerdt said.
Trading was stopped at 11:08am and resumed at 12:30pm.
So who is at fault? It sounds like one of two things happened:
- Scenario A: The Tribune Company, or perhaps the Sun-Sentinel, has bad search engine optimization practices, posting today’s date on old articles. This would be completely unacceptable for a publisher of such size.
- Scenario B: The searcher did not realize that the default for Google News results is relevance, and not date. The searcher did not read through the article carefully, nor noted the quotes attributed to 2002. The searcher then reposted the article as current. This would be also be completely unacceptable.
As the article has been pulled from the archives, and it is highly unlikely that anyone took a screen shot, the truth might never be known.
Related posts:
Sara, thanks for this post. Here’s a few of the takeaway’s I’ve gleaned, let me know if you agree.
1) With Google in the process of archiving historical (pre-internet days) runs of newspapers all over the world, this is bound to happen again.
2) The “crediblity” of the rumor came from the reposting by Lehman – a well known brokerage firm. As consumers of information, it’s easy to blame the source, but at the end of the day, the onus is on us to question the source, possible slant, and accuracy of any published information.
3) With how complex and interconnected firms are today via globalization and integrated financial markets, the power of rumor is stronger than ever and can destroy a company’s shareholder value in hours–maybe minutes. I think that’s why Treasury and SEC have sternly warned that companies/individuals who create and propagate unfounded rumors (in the attempt to profit from them) will be investigated and likely punished. Companies need to set up listening posts to monitor and respond to the chatter in real-time.
The screenshots have been found and made public.
I just posted an article that reconstructs the timeline and — I think — explains how all this could have happened. I have some ideas on what the most important lessons are:
http://www.readership.org/blog/2008/09/how-old-news-moved-market-united.html
You may also find this post interesting:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=150236
Rich Gordon
Medill School, Northwestern University
Great points, Paul. I spent a few hours trying to tack down exactly who re-published what, and when, and ran into a bit finger pointing session.
While most of us put search behavior, web content and SEO in the marketer’s toolbox, the gravity of this situation reminds us that Google’s goal of organizing the world’s information can have a much greater impact.
What a mess for United Airlines! Great post on the power of SEO and how one mistake can lead to a cascading shower of media melodrama.
Wow. What a sticky situation. But definitely something to get fired and sued over.
All the more reason to have a full spectrum ORM solution ready to deploy. United’s learn quite a few lessons this year about maintaining their brand online….after all….they break guitars!