"That may be purely because it gets distributed more broadly," he added. "It could also be because people tend to believe what they read on CNN-branded sites. There needs to be a better truth filter on iReport and other sites that allow the anonymous reporting of news. A better reputation system for contributors would help."
Adam Ostrow, a blogger at Mashable noted that Internet rumors concerning the stock market have been popping up long before those posting them were called "citizen journalists."
"I think this is mainly a special circumstance - concerns about Jobs' health have been in the news for months, and any indication that it is moving in one direction or the other has had implications for Apple's shares," he noted. "Further, the premise of iReport is that the best news makes it on-air to CNN (presumably after being verified by professional journalists) [and] that didn't seem to happen here. News about public companies is obviously a delicate subject, but I would hardly call this blunder the beginning of the end for citizen journalism."