Shira Ovide of The Wall Street Journal reports Thursday how Bloomberg News was able to obtain NetApp’s earnings on Wednesday an hour before everyone else.
Ovide writes, “Bloomberg News flashed out fiscal second-quarter numbers and guidance from NetApp before 3 p.m. this afternoon, after the news outlet said it found the Web address where NetApp earnings were sitting. The company had planned to release its results after the close of trading at 4 p.m.
“‘We found the release posted on the company’s website without any required password or firewall,’ Bloomberg News said in a statement. ‘The company failed to respond to multiple calls from us to verify the information on their website before we published our story.’
“According to people familiar with the news outlet’s procedures, Bloomberg News journalists frequently scour corporate websites to see if they can find news releases posted early by companies who are parking news online expecting no one will see them.
“These people say, for example, the Bloomberg journalists will type the Web address for a company’s first quarter earnings release, and then adjust the URL just to change the number of the quarter.”
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