WOW!! Clueless Reporter? Tell Me What You Find Wrong With This "Flash" Story

[guitarist]

I got this email from the reporter, in response to my email to him:

Thank you. Here's the fully edited version. In quickly reading Anubit's web site I misinterpreted what its business was.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11343199/...eport.html

[Article Accelerator]

I are so confused--as God is my witness, I thought they were the same thing!

Too much brown acid...

[guitarist]

Whitewashed version online now -- no errors this time, that I can see...



Apple Mulling Biggest Deal Since Jobs' 1996 Return: Report (Update 2)

Story updated to reflect difference between flash memory hardware and flash software.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Apple(AAPL_) is in talks to buy a flash storage company for mobile products called Anobit Technologies for $400 million to $500 million, Israeli newspaper Calcalist reports.

If a deal were to materialize, it would be Apple's biggest company acquisition since bringing legendary founder Steve Jobs back to the company by buying NeXT Computers in 1996. For a company that's relied on inventing and growing internal products to win consumer loyalty, a flash-storage focused deal could potentially allow for greater data storage on its mobile devices.


Apple already uses some of the flash product offerings of Herzeliya, Israel -based Anobit, which was founded in June 2006 with $76 million in venture capital raised by Battery Ventures, Pitango Venture Capital, and other strategic investors, according to its Web site. Currently, the company also has 21 memory signal processing-related patents, according to its Web site.

Anobit's attraction for Apple could lie in its manufacture of embedded flash controllers for smartphone and tablet computers, which improve the performance of device flash connectivity. This might mesh well with Apple's mobile product data storage needs.

[GGD]

guitarist wrote:
Whitewashed version online now -- no errors this time, that I can see...
...

Story updated to reflect difference between flash memory hardware and flash software.

But a surprising admission that the earlier version was very wrong.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

GGD wrote:
But a surprising admission that the earlier version was very wrong.

Necessary if the author wishes to salvage any pretense of journalistic integrity.

[guitarist]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=GGD]
But a surprising admission that the earlier version was very wrong.

Necessary if the author wishes to salvage any pretense of journalistic integrity.
He's a Finance writer, Business degree, probably know a lot of wonky details about banking and finance that would elude most non-finance people. It's not the same thing as being a tech writer or even an average informed consumer of computers and gadgets.

There are brilliant people with Doctorate degree in Science or Law or Medicine who don't know squat about Adobe software names or storage media, their expertise is elsewhere. Not defending bad research and sloppy writing-- he deserved to be hammered-- just playing Devil's Advocate.

To us he looked like a complete moron, but blowing something obvious about tech then correcting it in an hour isn't the end of the world. Deadline writers make and correct mistakes every day.

Reminds me of that old saying:

"The fastest way to find the right answer to something is to post the wrong one on the internet"

[DaviDC.]

You people have simply GOT to learn to skim articles & not read them word for word.

[GGD]

Is anyone here in the electronic publishing business? Do the writers send stuff straight to the web without anyone reading it, or are there editors, etc. that approve stuff before it is published. One would thing/hope that there are some sorts of checks and balances.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

guitarist wrote:
[quote=N-OS X-tasy!]
[quote=GGD]
But a surprising admission that the earlier version was very wrong.

Necessary if the author wishes to salvage any pretense of journalistic integrity.
He's a Finance writer, Business degree, probably know a lot of wonky details about banking and finance that would elude most non-finance people. It's not the same thing as being a tech writer or even an average informed consumer of computers and gadgets.

There are brilliant people with Doctorate degree in Science or Law or Medicine who don't know squat about Adobe software names or storage media, their expertise is elsewhere. Not defending bad research and sloppy writing-- he deserved to be hammered-- just playing Devil's Advocate.

To us he looked like a complete moron, but blowing something obvious about tech then correcting it in an hour isn't the end of the world. Deadline writers make and correct mistakes every day.
From his "About the author" blurb: http://www.thestreet.com/author/1220523/...a/all.html

Antoine Gara is the Deals Reporter on the Financial Services desk for TheStreet. Prior to joining TheStreet, Antoine was an intern at Bloomberg Businessweek magazine after graduating with a master's degree in business and economic journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to moving into journalism, Antoine worked as an analyst in the fixed-income operations of Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. He is a graduate of Middlebury College.

He earned a Master's degree in business journalism from the frickin' Columbia School of Journalism - so, yes, I would expect him to bring a measure of journalistic integrity to his business writings.