Talking Biz News to Fox Biz: “…” means nothing

Fox Business Network posted a story from Katie Roof and Charles Gasparino on its website on Friday implying that Twitter’s initial public offering would be happening soon, based on an email response from the company’s spokeswoman that simply stated “…” and Twitter responses.

In response, media watchers have been critical of the story’s lack of factual reporting.

Erik Wemple of The Washington Post wrote, “Unless you’re FoxBusiness.com. Here’s how the piece attempts to interpret the ‘development’: ‘But several people surveyed on Twitter about Twitter’s response said Penner may have inadvertently confirmed the IPO plans since in the past Twitter has often refused to respond to questions about it.’

“There you have it: FoxBusiness.com is using ‘several people surveyed on Twitter’ for evidentiary support on a key financial scoop.”

Josh Vorhees of Slate wrote, “But, of course, as the Fox headline suggests, they know about as much as anyone else does at this point: ‘Twitter Confirms IPO — Or Maybe Not.‘ The first few graphs of the story make it pretty clear that they have no facts to support the first half of that headline.”

Josh Feldman of Mediaiate wrote, “Or, in the case of the ellipsis above, expressing a lack of words in the face of something utterly ridiculous. I even checked by recent Facebook chats for the last time I used an ellipsis, and it was in response to a friend typing ‘DINOBOTS!’ So really, ellipses can be used for anything.

“They even conducted a Twitter survey to ask what people though the ellipsis meant. Again, this is was all to write a piece about Twitter’s IPO. With the help of an ambiguous punctuation mark, Urban Dictionary, and random people on Twitter.”