AP biz reporter duped by fake LinkedIn account

Beware of fake LinkedIn accounts for company executives. The Associated Press has run the following clarification:

“NEW YORK (AP) — In a Nov. 17 story about changes CEO Ron Johnson has instituted at J.C. Penney Co., The Associated Press attributed to Michael Francis, a former Penney president, comments about Johnson’s leadership of the company.

“The AP quoted Francis as saying that Johnson sticks to his beliefs and that Francis harbors no hard feelings toward Johnson, who fired him. “Life is too short,” Francis was quoted as saying.

“AP obtained the quotes through an email conversation it initiated from a page for Francis on the social network LinkedIn. After the story was published, Francis called the AP to say that the LinkedIn account belonged to an impostor, and that he himself had made no comments to AP about Johnson. Francis said he had contacted LinkedIn and that the company eliminated the account.

“LinkedIn confirmed to the AP that it had eliminated the account but declined to discuss why it did so or whether it had evidence the account was fraudulent.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.