The case of the changing press release is solved

Mike Huckman, who follows the drug industry for CNBC, writes that the Bristol-Myers Squibb earnings press release that he believed Thursday was changed to clear up confusion about its earnings was really just a snafu at PR Newswire.

Huckman wrote, “PR Newswire provides a subscription service to companies, including Bristol, called ‘Media Room.’ Essentially PR Newswire hosts the press release portion of the company’s web site, so that when news breaks it shows up on the site in real time. But until my blog today, Mr. Armon says PR Newswire had been unaware that its computer program automatically cuts off anything beyond five ‘sub-heads’ on a press release.

“PR Newswire can move hundreds of thousands of press releases a day during earnings season, but Mr. Armon says this is the first time–that he’s aware of–that the system wiped out a sixth bullet point from a corporate press release in the ‘Media Room.’

“The sixth ‘sub-head’ happened to be an important one about Bristol’s earnings per share. The complete version, he says, did reach over a million equity terminals and several thousand websites. But the ‘corrupted’ one appeared on Bristol’s web site. PR Newswire says it’s working to fix the I.T. snafu.”

Read more here.