Late yesterday night in England, the nearly 12,000 followers of Sky News’ business Twitter feed were greeted with a major news scoop.
>BREAKING: James Murdoch arrested over phone-hacking claims. Questioned at Paddington Green police station at 10pm.
Retweeting passed the news around pretty fast, but just 30 minutes after the tweet went up — it has since been deleted — Sky News reporters were already questioning its veracity, reaching out to the Metropolitan Police who confirmed that in fact no arrest had been made of the once-upon-a-time News Corp. scion. (A website straightforwardly called “Has James Murdoch Been Arrested Yet?” still has a giant red “No!” emblazoned across it.) Eventually the service’s digital news editor broadcast the following message:
Sky News has no information that James #Murdoch has been arrested and we believe that the @SkyNewsBiz accoutn [sic] was hacked.
Retweeting passed the news around pretty fast, but just 30 minutes after the tweet went up — it has since been deleted — Sky News reporters were already questioning its veracity, reaching out to the Metropolitan Police who confirmed that in fact no arrest had been made of the once-upon-a-time News Corp. scion. (A website straightforwardly called “Has James Murdoch Been Arrested Yet?” still has a giant red “No!” emblazoned across it.) Eventually the service’s digital news editor broadcast the following message:
Sky News has no information that James #Murdoch has been arrested and we believe that the @SkyNewsBiz accoutn [sic] was hacked.
