Blogger Adam Jacobi wrote on Friday, "I had an awesome 17 months with CBSSports.com. I'm sorry to everyone, most importantly the Paterno family, for how it ended."
He followed it with this message:
In the end, CBS had to let me go for the Paterno story going out the way it did, and I understand completely. Thanks, everyone, for reading.— Adam Jacobi (@Adam_Jacobi) January 27, 2012
The fiasco began last Saturday when Onward State, an online publication run by Penn State students, tweeted that Paterno had passed away. The 85-year-old coach was previously reported -- and confirmed -- by many news outlets to be gravely ill with lung cancer and in the hospital.
The @OnwardState Twitter account posted this: "Our sources can now confirm: Joseph Vincent Paterno has passed away tonight at the age of 85."
The story quickly spread online as an attributed rumor, while many news outlets held off on reporting it as fact. But CBSSports.com tweeted that "Joe Paterno has died at the age of 85." The message was ostensibly sent by Jacobi, and did not name a source.
The false reports were soon debunked by the Paterno family. Joe Paterno died the next day.
Onward State's managing editor resigned from his position shortly after Paterno's family denied the premature reports.
Jacobi's dismissal announced Friday is not the first time CBS has cut ties with a blogger over erroneously tweeted reports. In September, blogger Shira Lazar was let go after tweeting that Steve Jobs had died. Jobs died the following month.
Media commentator Alan Mutter, who writes the blog Reflections of a Newsosaur and is a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley CEO, said that the recent propensity of false reports like the one that cost Adam Jacobi his job are symptomatic of today's perpetually in-motion news cycle.
"It's been a great tradition in the news business to always want to be the first with the most, but the problem is that the traditional latency between news gathering and news production -- the different editing layers and time it took to actually go to the press and things like that -- is gone today, " he told Mashable.
"The good news with tools like Twitter is that we have many more people contributing to the conversation," Mutter said. "But if they're wrong, or especially trying to mislead or missing the facts, then that's the price we pay for instantaneous communication."