CNBC’s Darren Rovell Duped By Twitter Source: ‘Shame On Me. I Apologize to My Readers’

By Chris Ariens 

During the NBA lockout last year, CNBC’s sports business reporter Darren Rovell turned to Twitter to look for new angles to cover the story for CNBC.com. He came across a great one, when someone claimed to run an escort service in New York catering to NBA players. After several Twitter exchanges, Rovell ran with the story. But now, months later, Deadspin reveals Rovell was duped by a bored teenager named Tim.

On Monday, Tim sent us an email, explaining what he’d done. Why had he waited all these months? He says he had forgotten about it, until a friend had texted him out of the blue and told him to send it to us. And what did his friend say?

“He said [Rovell] is just such a douche on twitter all the time he just got fed up,” Tim says in an email, “which I agree with.”

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After reading the Deadspin story, Rovell published an apology on CNBC.com.

He duped me. Shame on me. I apologize to my readers. As a result I will do fewer stories on the real life impact of big events which I do think the public enjoys.

Let this be a lesson to you kids, don’t be a douche on Twitter.

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