Steve Jobs' health: Where's that SEC probe?
It's been nearly six months since Bloomberg News, which had been leading the pack investigating the vagaries of Steve Jobs' health problems, reported that Apple (AAPL) was facing a "review" by Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Wednesday, team Bloomberg revisited the story and reported that Apple's disclosures about Jobs' health "remain under scrutiny" by the SEC.
But the 1,039 word piece, reported by Connie Guglielmo, David Scheer and Karen Gullo, offers no new information about the government probe, what it's after or what progress it has made.
The story quotes a former SEC lawyer, a former SEC enforcement attorney, a securities law professor, and the author of a paper on advocating CEO health disclosures.
The pivotal question, as the experts point out, is what happened in the nine days between Steve Jobs' Jan. 5 announcement that he had a "hormone imbalance" and his Jan. 14 statement that he was taking a five and a half month medical leave.
Connie Guglielmo led the Bloomberg team that reported in January that Jobs was considering a liver transplant. The fact that Jobs had the surgery — and had been sick enough to go to the head of the transplant waiting list — was not revealed until June 20, a few days before he returned from his medical leave.
Given that her sources had nothing new to say about the SEC review, it's not clear why Guglielmo chose to revisit the story today, less than two weeks before Apple is scheduled to release earnings for what analysts think will be a strong quarter.
There was one nugget of news in the piece, however. It had been widely reported that members of Apple's board were being briefed by Jobs' doctors on his condition. The Bloomberg story names them: Art Levinson, former CEO of Genentech, and Bill Campbell, the former CEO of Intuit.
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It is NOBODDYS business what ANYONE has going on with there personal health and treatment. Issues about treatment are between the subject and the doctors treating them this inclueds Steve Jobs or M Jackson. The Public has NO Right to know about Your health or treatmeant unless YOU decide to tell them. The Press certainly has no right to publish it.
Ummmm… In case you didn't notice. Steve Jobs was NOT CEO at the time of his transplant so there's no need for any type of investigation. If shareholders want to sell if the non-CEO dies, that's on them. Nice try but no cigara…
Anyone who has had a sick loved one or who is in the medical profession knows that 9 days, is plenty of time for a diagnosis to change dramatically. What was once simple, can suddenly become complex. What was once harmless, can suddenly be life-threatening. What was thought to be the problem can turn out to just be another sympton. Medical opinions from leading physicians can differ dramatically. Look at Ted Kennedy, he has access to many of the world's leading brain surgeons in Boston, and yet he chose to go to Duke to have his surgery. Maybe he didn't like the medical opinions he was getting in Boston and decided to go where he got a medical opinion he liked. It happens.
The CEO of a publically traded company is no different than the health and emotional welfare of an elected public official. The governor of South Carolina is a good example. When you agree to take millions of dollars in exchange for that trust, it is that trust that we shareholders expect.
For months, Connie Guglielmo of Bloomberg has been on a one-person witch hunt about Steve Jobs. Let's face it: she wants him dead. I would love to see someone do a hit piece on her. I have come to wonder if:
A. Steve Jobs did something to upset her, and she's made it a personal vendetta or
B. She's on Steve Ballmer's payroll
If you read all of her stories about Steve Jobs, one thing is clear: Connie Guglielmo has lost all objectivity. And for any decent journalist, objectivity is supposedly the prime directive.
Even if a journalist is completely wrong or worse, if the journalist is corrupt, the very fact that they can publish a story and have it show up in Google News is tantamount to declaring the subject of the story as guilty. Besides responding to a story (and often, the responses are nuked by the publication), what recourse does the public have? Answer: none. The media can decide who it wants to destroy. In a series of accusatory articles dripping with often false assertions and innuendo, people like Connie Guglielmo can destroy lives and careers.
THAT is why I have come to regard most journalists with such hatred and distrust. Journalists are accountable to no one. They can launch campaigns to destroy companies and with it, countless jobs, marriages and lives. All it takes is a sensational headline, a collection of action verbs and an imagination.
Don't think we don't notice. If you're like me, you resent being played for a sucker. We're not. Perhaps that is why so many publications are failing.
What a waste of time to publish this insipid article. From the time period at issue 1/4/08-1/15/08 aapl has climbed from 78.20 to 135.80 today. So, clearly the issue of Jobs health has not diluted shareholder value–in fact quite the opposite. To fully comprehend the integrity and credibility of Bloomberg with respect to Jobs and Apple, just remember that about a year ago they printed Jobs obituary. This suggests a question that one might consider (the answer I do not claim to know or even suggest). Is that type of erroneous reporting of a material fact (that seemingly immediately impacts a stocks price) merely an err, or, should it be subject of an SEC investigation?
You really take imbecile to the next level.
Apple has not lost money for any shareholder since, perhaps never.
In an economy which is failing everywhere on the planet Apple is succeeding, making money and excelling but for some reason that offends your zeal for mediocrity, that's not good enough for you.
This is an age where for some reason, only Apple is providing design and technical excellence in all of their products and are being rewarded for it with continuing sales and profitability.
They are the point man in most of the newest innovations being presented in the cell phone and personal computing industries, you're still not satisfied.
Their company is paying for all of that technical innovation that everyone is taking advantage of now but that's not enough for you.
You would prefer Acer or Dell like design excellence in your computing and music products?
How about the newest Motorola innovations in your cell phone experience, bet you can't name the last innovative idea they had and marketed.
Steve's health issues are covered by existing Federal HIPPA laws which take precedence over SEC regulations.
And you and Connie Guglielmo, David Scheer and Karen Gullo (team of pandering click-idiots) and really nothing more than bloggers trolling for clicks with misleading headlines and no news worth talking about.
Complete idiots, the lot.
You write, in your typical Jim Goldman-esque cheerleading yet accusatory style:
"Given that her sources had nothing new to say about the SEC review, it’s not clear why Guglielmo chose to revisit the story today, less than two weeks before Apple is scheduled to release earnings for what analysts think will be a strong quarter."
Maybe because she's trying to get some answers to the deception created by the "above the law" Apple cult.
As an earlier poster commented, concentrate on your own reporting rather than whining about someone taking on the cult.
How long will this "old news" story persist. I can't believe that any average investor in Apple, forget the professionals, were not aware of Job's health situation. This has been the most reported on business story in the last six months…. what is the sense in wasting time on a personal health issue when everybody with a lick of common sense was aware that there we health problems associated with cancer going back to the beginning of the disclosure. Just one look at a picture of Job's was enough to alert anyone.
Really? The economy is collapsing, fraud is rampant and the SEC is spending time and money on 9 days in the life of Steve Jobs.
I guess the SEC is only good at witch hunts. Why don't they do their freaken' jobs and get the bad guys that DESTROYED our economy. Oh, I know why, they are inept and that would be hard.
Why don't you worry about your own reporting instead of complaining about Bloomberg? Seems like you don't have anything else to do.
Maybe if you guys reported on the health of Apple, Inc. and got off the Steve Jobs health witch hunt, you might see the real story, that it's a thriving and viable company and will be for quite some time.
HIPPA and CEO are not mutually exclusive. Move along here.
As usual people don't care about what's happening. But watch if the stock plummets. THEN some of the shareholders will cry foul and THE SEC AS USUAL is LATE will start to investigate further. HAHAHA Good luck in this bear market!
how about the sec probe into your antics?
the article yesterday where you mentioned tmobile and th pre in boxes, then removed that part of the article all together, then an hour later, all of a sudden, you were at a Sprint store…in a different location…..nice honest journalism, elmer.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt and "team Bloomberg", YOU ARE VULTURES AND ARE REALLY MENTALLY SICK. YOU ARE ALL DISGUSTING.
Who ever decided that financial news must be reported when they occur and only new information is "news"?
If feels like the general stock market conditions and a particular stock's direction are the "inspiration" behind the strategic timing of many releases, particularly from the well-established news sources.
Is there nothing private in this new Obama World that the media has created? I'd advocate for some truth in responsible rather than hysterical "reporting".
Another poster comments that maybe Kennedy didn't like what he heard in Boston and so went to Duke for his brain surgery. No, Duke is the best in the world for brain surgery treatment, with the doctor who operated on Kennedy having just developed a more successful technique that no one else in the world uses.
Kennedy didn't have access to the world's best brain docs in Boston, he went to Duke so he could have that.