Yesterday, I reported about a possible acquisition of Forbes by Russian investment fund ONIXEM Group. Rumors were stirred by an article from Russian newspaper Trud and spread rapidly through the blogosphere as soon as Yakov from the Quintura blog translated the article. With exciting though vague news like that, somebody needs to do some fact checking. Yet where to start?
Whenever something newsworthy occurs concerning start-ups, an email to its founder is quickly sent. But who do you contact when the news concerns major parties like Forbes and the ONIXEM Group? Why would they care to answer the call of a blogger?
Well-connected tech blogosphere
Luckily, the tech blogosphere as a whole is well connected. There’s always someone with an old friend at the right company. In the case of Forbes and its Russian connection, this “someone” turned out to be Om Malik.
An investor in Forbes
The famous tech blogger used to work at Forbes and sent a line to an old Forbes connection yesterday:
[..] I emailed Roger McNamee, who heads up Elevation Partners and is an investor in Forbes. His intervention got me a quick response. “Forbes absolutely denies this rumor, and has no knowledge of the source,” Forbes said in an emailed statement. “Forbes Russia is also not for sale to the ONEXIM group.”
Crowd sourcing fact checking
Behold the power of many. The tech blogosphere crowd sources its fact checking and even unravels mysteries about a Russian playboy and his desire to acquire a traditional American publishing house.
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk
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