iPad Mini Rumors More Credible, but Still Rumors

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Alongside recent rumors that Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB) will hook-up on iOS 6 and your obligatory weekly Apple TV chatter, we're getting the latest round of mini iPad rumors. The latest impetus was a Wall Street analyst, who, after a jaunt to Taiwan, said the iPad Mini was coming in September.

This puts the iPad Mini rumors in a slightly different light. They've previously been the purview of journalists and fly-by-night Internet creatures. But it still doesn't give the rumors the needed air of certainty. The report was pretty vague. Wall Street analysts have -- wouldn't you know it? -- been wrong before, especially on Apple products. Apple operates under a veil of secrecy and is vexing to cover as a journalist or analyst.

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Yet there the media goes again, reporting on a rumor like it's the God's honest truth. CNBC actually deploys the present tense, as if the new product, which might still be a figment of the imagination, is already here: "iPad Mini Puts Apple in Sweet Spot: Pros." Nothing in the article counsels caution.

When The New York Post, the famously hyperbolic tabloid, is your voice of reason, you know something is wrong. They ran with the headline: "Mini I Pad Rumblings." Got that? This talk hasn't risen to a level greater than a low undefined growl.

Just because it's coming from a Wall Street analyst rather than a pixel-stained wretch, doesn't mean you should treat it any differently.

At the time of publication, Fuchs had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column.

Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers and a money manager before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times' "County Lines" column for six years. He also did back-up beat coverage of The New York Knicks for the paper's Sports section for two seasons and covered other professional and collegiate sports. He has contributed frequently to many of the Times' other sections, including National, Metro, Escapes, Style, Real Estate, Arts & Leisure, Travel, Money & Business, Circuits and the Op-Ed Page.

For his "Business Press Maven" column on how business and finance are covered by the media, Fuchs was named best business journalist critic in the nation by the Talking Biz website at The University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Fuchs is a frequent speaker on the business media, in venues ranging from National Public Radio to the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

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