CBS Severs Ties To Shira Lazar’s ‘What’s Trending’ Over Steve Jobs Death Hoax

by James Crugnale | 5:51 pm, September 12th, 2011

» 16 comments

CBSNews.com axed all ties with Shira Lazar‘s webshow What’s Trending this weekend after last Friday’s hoax tweet which purported the death of Steve Jobs that, in Gawker’s words, “freaked out the internet.”

The erroneous tweet had said “Reports say that Steve Jobs has passed away. Stay tuned for more updates” which made its way all throughout the blogosphere. Lazar quickly deleted the tweet and apologized (“Apologies — reports of Steve Job’s death completely unconfirmed. Live on.”) but with numerous media outlets reporting CBS to be the originator of the message, the harm from the negative publicity had already been done.

CBSNews.com began a relationship with What’s Trending and Lazar in May to get en vogue with social media trends and web buzz. However, the hoax tweet proved to be a costly PR disaster and What’s Trending has since been scrubbed entirely from the CBS website.

Watch Shira Lazar on her show below, courtesy of YouTube:

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(h/t HR)

CBSNews.com, Hoax, shira lazar, Steve Jobs

Anonymous

What an idiot.
Anonymous

Her new gig is called “What’s Descending”.
Anonymous

She could make up for this by tweeting something true,the death of her career.
Nature Freak

Some media people are so anxious to be the first one to report breaking news stories they are willing to throw all journalism ethics in the waste basket.

Sounds like Shira Lazar gambled and lost.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WH3ZLMM7CUKUHUIMK4TKXW6SQE John

Maybe Contessa Brewer can hook Shira up with a job at Chili’s.
Just some Blow Hard…

This is why we should ban Shira law…

wait a minute
JJ

two things. 1. it wasn’t even shira, cbs is throwing her under the bus. 2. this isn’t the first time an organization misreported something. get over it.
JJ

two things. 1. it wasn’t even shira, cbs is throwing her under the bus. 2. this isn’t the first time an organization misreported something. get over it.
Anonymous

I bet she cried… chicks cry..
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JUT2TATEV3OHGQ7HZRYN472XVM Felix

Good thing Lazar wasn’t associated with Fox News, else the libs would be harranguing about “Faux news”. But, don’t hold your breath that they’ll criticize CBS that way.
AJ

Airhead . She’d be a better fit at Fox News, which manages to get the facts wrong every day
TruDat

Cry me a river. She belongs on CBS with the other liars, like Dan Rather.
TruDat

The lefty babes are dropping like flies all over cable.
Anonymous

Enjoyed the show but the apology that was given was a half apology making it seem like it was true but they couldn’t confirm it. So if they played the my account was hacked card would it of mattered? I’m just saying it seems like everyone these days can’t take responsibility and blame account hacking for controversial tweets or messages.
http://twitter.com/Darr247 Darr Darr

I don’t follow her or CBS so I didn’t see it… was it after the market closed?

If so, I don’t see how it did any more harm than faux newz having “Obama bin Laden Dead!” in the banner above its scroller the night that news broke. Nobody got fired for that, I’m sure.
http://profiles.google.com/ranjay25 no kia

BTW it’s Norah O’Dumbell of bsnbc you’re thinking of. She tweeted that then immediately took it off. But unfortunately for her others took screen shots of her tweet.