CHICAGO, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on our examination of the data
up to this point, we have learned the following:
The December 10, 2002, Chicago Tribune article on United Airlines'
bankruptcy filing, along with thousands of others stories in the searchable
database of the Sun Sentinel website, was accessible for years.
Our records show that due to traffic volume, sometime between 1:00:34
a.m. EDT, Sunday, September 7 (10:00:34 p.m. PDT, Saturday, September 6)
and 1:36:03 a.m. EDT, Sunday, September 7 (10:36:03 p.m. PDT, Saturday,
September 6), a link to the old article appeared in a dynamic portion of
the Sun Sentinel's business section, grouped with other stories under a tab
entitled "Popular Stories Business: Most Viewed." No new story was
published and the old story was not re-published -- a link to the old story
was merely provided.
Importantly, the URL for the old story did not change when the link
appeared on the website's business section.
At 1:36:57 a.m. EDT, September 7, (10:36:57 p.m. PDT, September 6), our
records show that the Google search agent -- known as "Googlebot" --
crawled the story on Sun Sentinel's website. Our records also show that the
Google search agent had previously crawled this same story numerous times,
including as recently as last week. Shortly after Googlebot crawled the Sun
Sentinel site this time, however, a link to the story appeared on Google
News, with a date of Sept. 6, 2008, provided by Google. At 1:39:59 a.m.
EDT, September 7 (10:39:59 p.m. PDT, September 6), our records show the
story on the Sun Sentinel website received its first referral from Google
News.
Apparently sometime Monday morning, the story was made available to
subscribers of Bloomberg News.
As we said yesterday, the December 10, 2002, story contains information
that would clearly lead a reader to the conclusion that it was related to
events in 2002. In addition, the comments posted along with the story are
dated 2002. It appears that no one who passed this story along actually
bothered to read the story itself.
TRIBUNE is America's largest employee-owned media company, operating
businesses in publishing, interactive and broadcasting. In publishing,
Tribune's leading daily newspapers include the Los Angeles Times, Chicago
Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel (South Florida), Orlando Sentinel,
Hartford Courant, Morning Call and Daily Press. The company's broadcasting
group operates 23 television stations, WGN America on national cable,
Chicago's WGN-AM and the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Popular news and
information websites complement Tribune's print and broadcast properties
and extend the company's nationwide audience. At Tribune we take what we do
seriously and with a great deal of pride. We also value the creative spirit
and are nurturing a corporate culture that doesn't take itself too
seriously.
SOURCE Tribune Company
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Related links:
http://www.tribune.com
CONTACT:
Gary Weitman, SVP/Corporate Relations of
Tribune Company, +1-312-222-3394, gweitman@tribune.com
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