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CBS Pulls Out of Web Show After False Tweet Reporting Steve Jobs’ Death

Sep 12, 2011  •  Post A Comment

An erroneous Twitter message Friday reporting that Apple’s Steve Jobs had died, put out on the account for the Web show “What’s Trending,” convinced CBS to end its affiliation with the show, PCMag.com reports.

The message said simply: "Reports say that Steve Jobs has passed away. Stay tuned for more updates." However, Jobs, who recently stepped down as Apple CEO because of medical problems, was still alive — and still is, as of Monday afternoon.

The account followed up moments later with a tweet saying the report was unconfirmed, but the “news” had been picked up by then and was being disseminated in cyberspace — to the embarrassment of CBS, with many reports attributing the original report to “a CBS Twitter account.”

CBSNews.com had an affiliation with “What’s Trending” and its creator and executive producer Shira Lazar, but has since removed the show from the CBS website and has been busy taking other steps to distance itself from the show. Lazar has issued a series of apologies for the false report.

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