Month: June 2009

Yesterday, I discussed all that I was going to say about the Jobs liver transplant thing, but Twitter user @alysdrake brought up an interesting point:

@ismh great commentary…however, people would have little to obsess about if Apple would directly address the issue.

Let’s say Apple did tip the WSJ. In a way, that means Apple could control the story. But if Apple had sent out a press release, they would have much more control.

That said, people would still be obsessing over what Apple’s press release didn’t say. Apple followers love to read between the lines, picking every word and phrase apart to find all possible meanings, trying to glean any tidbits of information they can.

In short, should Apple address this situation? Yes. Would it help stop the madness that is going on? Probably not.

As everyone who has an Internet connection has read, Steve Jobs more than likely had a liver transplant about two months ago at a hospital more than likely here in Memphis, Tenn. The original story by the Wall Street Journal that set all this off was sparse on details and did not name any sources.

Neither of those things mattered, as the Internet, TV and print media exploded with the story. It’s everywhere – even my mom emailed me a link to the story.

Steve Jobs – and his health – are no doubt important subjects to those of us interested in Apple and the ecosystem around the company. To many, Apple is Steve Jobs. I’ve addressed this mindset before and believe it to be true, but only to a limited extent.

This situation raises several questions, but to address those question, we must assume that (A) Steve Jobs did have a liver transplant and (B) it was done in secret.

I believe that he did have a transplant here in Memphis – after getting a tip back in April from someone inside one of the hospitals listed in the WSJ piece.

But let’s dive into the big questions about this story.

So, Question 1: Is Jobs really that sick?

It is well-known that Jobs’ form of pancreatic cancer is quite rare, and that it can spread to the liver. With the questions last year over Jobs’ weight loss and appearance, many have speculated the cancer may be back. Jobs denied this in his open letter, published on January 5 of this year:

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.
Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

But just 9 days letter, Jobs published another letter:

…during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.
In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

So with that, Jobs stepped aside to recover, and the company has been silent on the subject ever since, leaving lots of people the opportunity to chime in. There seem to be two camps. The first group thinks the liver transplant was required because his cancer had spread – not good news at all. The second group thinks the transplant was to avoid any issues from cropping up, or – at the very most – some damage had been done to the liver during his treatments a few years ago, and needed replacing to correct the weight-loss problem. The second theory is not nearly as dire as the first.

Either way, I don’t think anyone would disagree that Jobs has had – and is still having – major health issues.

Question 2: Why keep the transplant a secret?

As Jobs has noted, he considers his health a private issue.

Apple has always been quiet on the topic, mainly since Apple’s stock seems tied to Jobs’ health.

Secrecy is Apple’s middle name. It’s the whole reason sites like MacRumors and AppleInsider can exist.

Of course, there’s a conspiracy theory out about this: that Apple itself leaked the story. This is an interesting thought, and frankly, it makes sense. The WSJ piece was posted late Friday night, after the markets closed and after the 3GS was released – to potentially ease any damage that could have been done to Apple’s stock price. Also, the WSJ quoted no sources, and Apple has yet to deny the story.

Without a doubt, Apple’s stockholders have a right to know what’s going on. In my opinion, any news regarding the CEO should come from the company itself, not from news stories based on sources without names.

Question 3: Should this be off-limits to the media?

This the hardest question. Cameron Harper, of Memphis’ ABC affiliate, said this in a tweet last night:

Normally health issues are private, but not Steve Jobs’. His health materially effects the future of a publicly traded company.

I think Harper summed up the thoughts of the media perfectly, but this is a weighty topic.

Journalists have a responsibility to report news about public figures and companies, but they have to keep in mind that even public figures are human beings, and that such news can have a much larger impact that desired – such as falling stocks and even (in extreme cases) lawsuits. A balance must be struck.

Liabilities aside, there’s a line between covering a story and invading someone’s privacy. Cult of Mac’s story about Steve Jobs’ plane is an example of crossing that line:

Worldwide, there are scores of plane geeks who track messages sent via the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), an automated system that transmits airplane status messages to other aircraft and ground stations.
[…]
A search of Acarsd.org, a database that aggregates messages from hundreds of scanners connected to the Internet, shows that Jobs’s jet was in the air of March 23. It reported its position to the east of Modesto, CA.
“The aircraft could have been eastbound at that point,” says Carl Howe, an analyst with Yankee Group and a former pilot who searched the Acarsd.org database to produce a report of the jet’s movements for the last 6 months.
“If it were the case, the next time the aircraft logs time is on April 5, about two weeks later,” says Howe. “Anything is possible, but that seems like a pretty fast turnaround for a liver transplant; there’s more activity in April though.”
Jobs’ plane was busy in April, logging five flights that month — the most movements the plane has made in the last six months. And it looks like Jobs’s jet made three flights close together in late April, arriving or departing from San Jose on April 21, 23 and 27.

In our world of social media and always-on news broadcasts, such things must be used to fill time, but obsessive coverage of a topic doesn’t mean it’s good coverage. Sadly, much of the news surrounding Jobs has been over the top, with people hunting down the house the Jobs family supposedly bought, and asking the other people in the area about the mysterious addition to the neighborhood.

Is what house Jobs bought news? Is the man’s health newsworthy? Are headlines asking “Will Apple Survive Without Jobs” worth printing? Should reporters spend hours tracking down neighbors? Those are all debatable. Is it in good taste? In my mind, that’s a much easier question to answer.

Sadly, the media doesn’t bother with the question of taste sometimes.

Remember that TUAW post about 1st-generation iPhone users getting screwed over when it came to push notifications that turned out to be incorrect?

They’ve apologized:

TUAW’s bloggers and editors strive to provide accurate information and to clearly distinguish conjecture or rumor from fact. In this instance, we got it wrong.

We are truly sorry for this situation. We understand that it reflects poorly on us as a site, to readers and to the community at large. As a result, we have strengthened our editorial resolve to do more vigorous checking of the technical details of posts, so that this sort of misinformation does not get published in the future.

As always, thank you for reading TUAW. Without your support, we wouldn’t be here, and we are very much aware how important our credibility is to your continued readership and participation.

A little late, but they did the right thing here.