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Bug #27916 
Reuters headline wildly overstates Steve Ballmer's stock sale
This bug appeared in a news report published by Reuters.com on Nov 5, 2010.
View the original news report.
Bug Type: Headline Problem
The headline on this Reuters story reads "Microsoft's Ballmer sells 12 percent stake in company."
In fact, as the story itself explains, Ballmer sold 12 percent *of his stake* in Microsoft. That is, he sold 12 percent of the stock he owns, which, Reuters' story goes on to say, is now, after the stock sale, about 4.2 percent of the company. By comparison, Bill Gates owns about 7.2 percent of Microsoft. No individual could sell 12 percent of the company because no one owns that much of it.
The first comment under the story reports the error.
Response
Scott Rosenberg has contacted Reuters.com and received the following response.
None.
Discussion Leave a comment
I emailed Reuters soon after filing this bug using their contact form, which has a "report correction" option.
The headline is now fixed to read "Microsoft's Ballmer sells 12 percent of his stake in company."
There's no indication that the error was corrected. You can still see the original erroneous headline archived at Techmeme.