Reporters Spar Over Steve Jobs Health

After Apple head Steve Jobs announced he will be on medical leave until June, investors sold Apple stock and media talking heads went even more nuts. Most notable was a battle between CNBC’s Silicon Valley bureau chief Jim Goldman and Newsweek’s technology columnist Dan Lyons in which Lyons said Goldman was a lapdog who believed anything Apple told him just for the sake of access to the company. Goldman had previously reported that all was well with Jobs, and Lyons was previously the anonymous writer of a blog (and then book) called The Fake Steve Jobs which was an insider account of all things Apple.

Here’s the battle. More cable news than business news in its hysteria level, which is unfortunate. But more and more, that’s the way of CNBC, especially since Fox Business News has come on the scene.