Apple or Abu Dhabi? What's the difference?

Caroline McCarthy of CNET News notes Friday that Fox Business Network anchor Alexis Glick confused Apple with the United Arab Emirates state of Abu Dhabi when reporting who had taken an 8 percent stake in Advanced Micro Devices.

McCarthy wrote, “‘There’s some news coming across the tape right now,’ Glick said on the live program. ‘We’re seeing from Wall Street Journal that Apple is buying an 8 percent stake in AMD.’

“In fact, it was the government of the United Arab Emirates state of Abu Dhabi, not Apple, that had purchased the stake in AMD. Yes, yes, I know Steve Jobs’ Cupertino empire really could be mistaken for a cash-flooded sovereignty sometimes. But let’s be serious. Apple? Abu Dhabi?

“When the mistake became clear, Glick’s co-host, Peter Barnes, said, ‘Oh, the Arabs. OK.’ To make matters worse, the program even referred to the country incorrectly, as ‘Abu Dubai,’ not ‘Abu Dhabi.’

“Even funnier, contributing analyst Charles Payne–the founder and CEO of Wall Street Strategies–had gone right along with the gaffe. ‘That’s real smart by Apple because AMD is in trouble right now,’ he had said to Glick. ‘AMD has always had two problems: either it had a great product that was either sometimes superior to Intel but not the distribution, or it would have a terrible product that obviously they couldn’t compete.'”

Read more here.