No smoke without fire

Not dead. (At time of writing.)

Here’s a little insight into how easy it is difficult it is to subvert international news organisations.

Somebody created a twitter account that looked very much like an official Sky News account. It had the Sky News logo as a picture. (I’m not linking to it.) Then they tweeted that Margaret Thatcher had died.

Oh dear.

Cue big excitement behind the scenes of news organisations.

It’s a prime example of how much more important it is to be right than to be first. (Sky News has had ascribed to it the motto “Never wrong for long” i.e. might not be dead now, but will be sometime. Or wrong news now, but we can correct it and then it’ll be fine. To be clear though, Sky wasn’t the culprit in this case. The twitter account was fake.)

Was the incorrect news of Margaret Thatcher’s death broadcast on the BBC

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The ugly honesty of a financial trader

We revel in your misery – should that be the official slogan of financial traders? (Could double up for journalists too I suppose – suffering makes news.)

Trader Alessio Rastani was interviewed on BBC News recently. He was frank. Honest. Too honest?

And the truth was ugly. “I go to bed every night and I dream of a recession.” He wants it. Have a watch