Updated: CBSNews.com abruptly removed the weekly webcast “What’s Trending” from its website after the show sent an embarrassing tweet on Friday that mistakenly reported the death of Steve Jobs. As you might imagine, the tweet spread quickly despite a quick retraction.
“Last Friday, a miscommunication in the newsroom resulted in a junior staffer at ‘What’s Trending’ sending a tweet that contained an unchecked, unconfirmed and ultimately untrue report about Steve Jobs,” explained host Shira Lazar at the beginning of this week’s episode. “The tweet was retracted in less than a minute and a hastily written apology was issued by us and our distributor, followed a bit later by a more formal apology. Unfortunately by then, the original tweet had already made its way around the Internet and who did it, or how it happened, no longer mattered.”
The hastily-written apology didn’t help: “Apologies- reports of Steve Job’s death completely unconfirmed. Live on.” On Tuesday’s show, Lazar apologized to Steve Jobs and CBS News. “We are immeasurably sorry for what happened,” she said. “While mistakes do happen, this mistake was a particularly terrible and unfortunate one that has left our organization humbled and deeply apologetic.”
Distributed by CBSNews.com but produced by Disrupt Group, What’s Trending got its start four months ago with the promise to bring a new kind of news for the Facebook generation. “Covering what’s trending online allows us to take on everything that people are buzzing about (and it’s obviously easier than ever to discover that) from Middle East revolutions to online memes,” Lazar told us when the show launched. While the show is independently produced, some credited the errant tweet to CBS.
Lazar dropped us a note to say the whole affair is very unfortunate. “In this case, the community has felt that what CBS did was extreme,” she said, referencing this story that asks, “Did CBS Overreact About One Bad Tweet?” She added, “The fact that our team forged on yesterday and delivered one of our best shows yet, even relaunching the site 72 hours later is an incredible feat.”
The show is still producing new episodes on WhatsTrending.com, but without a major distribution partner, its economic picture isn’t bright. Unfortunately, social media may ultimately kill a social media show, but in the iterative world of Twitter, corrections are an acceptable part of the ecosystem. What do you think — was CBSNews.com too harsh in pulling the show?