'Off-the-Record' Is Not Confirmation

Rather than clearing up the confusion and concern on its post-earnings conference call, Apple again retreated into its "private matter" mode, adding tritely that Jobs loves Apple and has no plans to leave.

Which bring us to Nocera and his peculiar interpretation of the rules of engagement in journalism. While working on an article on the issue and after receiving the boilerplate claims from Apple flacks about privacy, Nocera received something else -- a call from Jobs himself.

The two agreed on an off-the-record interview. In journalism, this means what it sounds like -- the conversation is off the record. And that's where things got weird.

Right after the words "I agreed," in reference to the off-the-record nature of the conversation, Nocera proceeded to write all but what the conversation was not about:

"Because the conversation was off the record, I cannot disclose what Mr. Jobs told me. Suffice it to say that I didn't hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than `a common bug,' they weren't life-threatening and he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer."

Apparently, since Jobs told him that his condition fell somewhere between two truths -- cancer and the common bug, Nocera took it to mean Jobs was handing him a scoop, even though Jobs had spoken only on the condition that the conversation be off the record. Read this line of gross self-justification:

"After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr. Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money."

And this one, which plays falsely modest and does not recognize the notion that someone can address shareholders through the media ... though Jobs did not intend to, despite Nocera's end run around widely recognized rules of engagement:

"You would think he'd want them to know before me. But apparently not."

Savvy investors, this article had a load of problems --- not the least of which was the fact that in its conclusions, it spent time justifying the disclosure of an off-the-record conversation, but not even touching upon the prospect that Jobs might be cleverly spinning, as he did before.

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