From: Alan Olsen <root@nwdtc.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 03:49:48 +0800
To: Cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Something for the conspiracy mongers...
Message-ID: <339473B9.799D@nwdtc.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain

http://www.wired.com/news/business/story/4209.html

Here is an interesting news item.  Make of it what you will...


  [arrow] ABC's Rush on Judgment Is a Red-Faced Flub
          by Austin Bunn

          6:02pm  2.Jun.97.PDT ABCNews.com jumped the gun on the Timothy
          McVeigh verdicts Monday afternoon, posting that the Oklahoma City
          bombing defendant was guilty approximately an hour before the
          jurors had made their verdicts known in a Denver courtroom.

          Spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said the error was a "technical glitch"
          caused by a misunderstanding about servers used on the site,
          which launched just last month. ABCNews.com uses a staging server
          to hold the prepared news before posting it live, but executives
          were unaware that the ticker function uploads information live
          directly.

          "We've never done the ticker updating this way," said Murphy.
          Both headlines - "McVeigh Not Guilty" and "McVeigh Guilty" - ran
          for an undetermined amount of time. "It was not up for very
          long," assured Murphy. "Someone noticed immediately and ...
          deleted it from the ticker."

          It's common practice for news organizations to prepare alternate
          headlines and stories should such a ruling go either way in order
          to get the news out as quickly as possible. But this isn't the
          first time an online news operation has had problems with a
          high-profile verdict. In October 1995, Pathfinder declared O. J.
          Simpson "Guilty" in his criminal trial, moments after the jury
          had acquitted him.

          From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
          [arrow]

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