Shares of United plummeted 75 percent on the Nasdaq exchange today before trading was manually halted. All of this because of a chain of events that started when a link to an old story from 2002 on the air carrier's bankruptcy appeared as a link on the website of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, was picked up by Google News, got written up by a newsletter produced by Income Securities Advisor, which in turn was distributed on the Bloomberg wire. Google is blaming the newspaper, while the newspaper is blaming Google. Bloomberg has washed its hands of the affair, blaming the content provider. And algorithm worshippers can all point to the puny human who didn't read the dateline. But that wasn't the real bug in the meatware.It really boiled down to a bunch of people believing something they read on the Internet. In other words, Google and Bloomberg are seen as trusted sources. Google sells itself as more trustworthy because there are no editorial decisions made by humans on the news site — when of course, like Bloomberg's syndication practices, it's just that much cheaper to maintain. What neither of them have solved is the entire problem with the mechanization of information distribution: Garbage in, garbage out.

Wow, those scoop artists at Bloomberg are really on a roll! First they got the exclusive on Apple CEO Steve Jobs's obituary. Sure, Jobs wasn't actually dead, but the report generated all sorts of interesting attention and buzz. Now the financial wire's editors have become the first in the world to report that John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge. Bloomberg arrived at this conclusion after misreading the Times, which reported that Palin's husband was arrested 22 years ago on a drunk-driving charge. Compounding the mistake, a tipster told us, is that the error was silently fixed, with no correction issued — "a verboten act under the Bloomberg way." Perhaps the DC bureau, headed by old Wall Street Journal hand Al Hunt, conspired to guard against anyone's summary dismissal from the unforgiving high-pressure news organization. Click the thumbnail to see Bloomberg's original mistake.

Bloomberg News' rather embarrassing faux pas—posting Apple chief Steve Jobs' obituary before he's actually dead—has now been chuckled at by just about everyone. It's not the sort of publicity that Bloomberg's bow-tied editorial boss Matthew Winkler, a notorious tyrant, wanker, and stickler for detail, is fond of. This is a man who threw a legendary tantrum (listen to it here!) while firing a reporter for making a far less egregious error. So the immediate reaction among those familiar with him to news of the Jobs obit was, "Heads will roll." Our question: whose heads? Email us if you have any information on the fallout. Though we personally encourage restraint and forgiveness.

The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation. The Times weighed in on the matter as recently as last month, when columnist Joe Nocera spoke with the secretive tech executive. But news organizations routinely prepare obituaries in advance, even for the healthy. And if Bloomberg readers had seen the internal story slug, "testjobs," their jitters might have abated. The obit, which we've obtained and reprinted after the jump, is a bit macabre to read but should not scare you out of your Apple shares. (UPDATE: Bloomberg has "retracted" its obituary, and the retraction is also after the jump.) More interesting are the accompanying notes for Bloomberg reporters!

That would bring the total, on paper at least, to $16 billion. Not a bad day for the mayor. [Business Sheet]

Merrill Lynch, under financial pressure, is selling one of its more valuable assets, a 20 percent stake in Bloomberg, the financial-information business, for $4.5 billion to $5 billion. The sale marks the business's value at $22 billion to $25 billion — four times or more what Rupert Murdoch paid to tuck the Wall Street Journal's publisher, Dow Jones, a far more prestigious name in business news, into News Corp. Under Murdoch's ownership, Journal staffers are groaning about new expectations for productivity. Several highly paid, but not highly prolific, writers have been laid off, including George Anders, one of the biggest names in technology reporting. Join the club, Bloomberg writers would say; they are constantly measured, and perpetually disgruntled. What Bloomberg's high valuation tells us: Expectations of productivity in the news business are here to stay. Prestige and quality are well enough — but only if they make a noticeable difference. Being read matters just as much as being right.

Compensating for the recent court ruling that criminalizes the sharing of drugs, NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg wants to get rid of the city's buzzkill cabaret laws, which basically outlaw dancing in clubs. Seriously! So Rotten Apple partygoers, get ready to dance the night away in a feverish haze of sweat, whirling bodies, and blurry memories of groping under flashing strobe lights. But without drugs. (Unless you bring them yourself!) [NYDN]

We really really want this: a video from the roadshow for Bloomberg's Plan B, a much-needed revamping of the financial news service. Writes a tipster: "They had a typically condescending presentation in NY, with actors wearing fish-heads interviewing Matt Winkler and other psychopaths." If you have a clip, email please!

Bloomberg News has failed to win an award, and that is obvious proof of fraud! So goes the logic of Bloomberg boss Matthew Winkler, the bow-tied tyrant and enemy of humans. Bloomberg ran an epic investigative piece on the insurance industry that generated both acclaim and a lot of pushback. The industry said the piece was full of errors; an investigation found no errors; the Deadline Club of New York eventually named the story as a finalist for several awards, but it didn't win any. Right that second, Matthew Winkler's bow tie perked up. He knows a setup when he sees it!:

Bloomberg staffers in London received a company email recently advising them how to handle the newfound responsibility of caring for the plastic water bottles each employee had been issued. "'These bottles are yours to look after and as stated in the original message, you will only get one,' it says. To ensure 'your bottle does not go walkies and [you] are drinking out of your own one and no one elses [sic]' it might be an idea to mark them with your name. 'There are permanent markers in the stationery cupboards you can use.'" Well then. Quite an embarrassing place to work. [Times UK]

Lex Fenwick, purple-suited CEO-in-name-only of Bloomberg, did once put his finger on the greatest threat to the financial information service: "ourselves," he told Fortune, referring to the company's potentially complacent management. Behind the superficially charming self-deprecation, Fenwick hit upon a truth. For a highly profitable company founded by a supposed paragon of competence, Bloomberg is an astonishingly unhappy place run by bad-tempered cronies of the New York mayor. We wouldn't normally run the ravings of a disgruntled former employee. But Jerel Smith's farewell email captures some of the data terminal company's poisonous atmosphere; and his parting words for "loud mouth family size bag o'douche" Fenwick are particularly unfettered.

Though Bloomberg News' decision to hire former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine is probably bad news for the news wire's tyrant editor, Matthew Winkler, it seems likely to open up opportunities for recently-installed Bloomberg executive Dan Doctoroff, a former Lehman Brothers dealmaker. The Times sees hints Bloomberg is getting ready to make some acquisitions:

The internet has given us so many things, among them jargon which can dress up any brutal corporate maneuver in bland and progressive-sounding language. When Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation decided to seize full control of the Wall Street Journal, the Australian media mogul's chief lieutenant took the title of head of content, reducing the role of managing editor to a cipher and sidestepping the rules intended to protect the editorial independence of the newspaper. And now the new management at Bloomberg's financial information company has played the same trick on the bow-tied tyrant who rules over wire service's newsroom like a dapper Stalin, Matthew Winkler.

Oh no, now you've gone and encouraged Michael Bloomberg again: Newsweek reports that "the mayor's confidants and closest associates are, in fact, encouraging him to explore the idea" of buying the Times. And to bolster their case they've no doubt assembled clips of others saying the same thing in the press over the past few months, including Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff, shouting head Jim Cramer and former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger. Despite frightful working conditions at Bloomberg's financial information company, his buddies imagine him shielding the Times newsroom from intense financial pressures:

Thomson Reuters is expected to plaster its logo all over New York, London and Toronto subway stations today, along with the New York Stock Exchange building and Times Square. Why? Because the company, formerly Thomson, is very excited that it just completed its takeover of Reuters and wants the whole world to care. Also, the company thinks promoting its brand will sell a few more subscriptions to its databases, like Westlaw. and help the company surpass in size its competitor Bloomberg. Let the ridiculously expensive pissing match begin! [Times]

Oh no: yet another macher proposing mayor Michael Bloomberg step in to save the New York Times. This time it's Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff who, like the Wall Street Journal's former managing editor and that shouter from cable, believes the besieged newspaper could do worse than seek rescue by New York's billionaire mayor.

At last night's Inner Circle bash for the City Hall Press Corps, the Mayor performed with the cast of the campy Broadway roller-disco musical Xanadu. Bloomberg wore two ridiculous costumes that belong to two different City tribes— the gays and the hipsters. At left, an absolutely flaming photo of the Mayor in vaudeville dandy gear surrounded by boys in togas. In the shot on the right, Mike wears an ensemble straight out of the Lower East Side complete with shiny, purple American Apparel spandex and leg-warmers. So where do his loyalties really lie? Is Mayor Mike a gay or a hipster?

Here's a final thought on Michael Bloomberg's annoying flirtation with a presidential campaign, which ended with his declaration in the New York Times today that he wasn't running. The commentators have noted that a short Jew with no political base had no shot at the presidency. But even the New York mayor's supposed managerial competence, his main claim to credibility, wouldn't have stood up to the political spotlight.

One of the few places on earth where the dollar actually goes further than it did at the start of the year: South Africa, where the rand is down 12% against the US currency. The mines, the country's main export earner, had to shut for five days last month because the state electricity company hasn't been investing in new generators, explains Bloomberg News. To the white technocrats who used to run the country, this is evidence of course that an incompetent black-led government has ruined South Africa. That couldn't be what Bloomberg's famously insensitive editor-in-chief, Matthew Winkler, meant, could it? According to the wire service grapevine, Winkler briefed his reporters: "South Africa is a great place, but the people who are running it don't have the brains to run it." Which is pretty much what one could say about Bloomberg, a fabulously profitable company with management so dysfunctional that employees refer to their workplace not-altogether-jokingly to Doomberg. (Related: one of Winkler's acolytes asks after the catastrophic Asian tsunami: Why do we care? And here's the now-notorious audio clip of Winkler ranting at his staff after a reporter made an error.) After the jump, Winkler, aka the deranged bowtie after his trademark dorkwear, shows how to tie one in a classic Youtube clip.

It should not have been a big deal when an academic journal at Stanford repeatedly suggested Michael Bloomberg would be a good education president, and it definitely should not have turned into an embarrassing little scandal. But a scandal is exactly what has ensued, because the mayor's sad inability to publicly acknowledge his misguided presidential ambition has left everyone terrified of offering him the slightest encouragement. The article included the ridiculous picture at left and said "many people think [Bloomberg] should be president" and that if he ran, "Americans might have a renewed opportunity to ponder the state of American education." In the chaotic aftermath of the Bloomberg-friendly piece, a journal board member resigned, the author acknowledged "we barely see a blip" in education after six years under Bloomberg and none of the three board members contacted by the Sun think Bloomberg should run for president. In other words, no one wants to be responsible for having encouraged him. [NY Sun]