BUSINESS BRIEFING

TECHNOLOGY

Apple Stock Dives on False Report

A false Internet report that Apple's Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack briefly slammed his company's stock and raised fresh questions about the delicate relationship between traditional and new media.

The posting on iReport.com -- a citizen journalist site owned by Time Warner's CNN -- is the most recent incident in which a faulty online report created brief, but wrenching, confusion among investors.

Apple quickly denied the report about its chief executive, but not before its stock dropped more than 2 percent, hitting a 17-month low of $94.65. It later recovered, climbing as much as 4 percent, before closing at $97.07, down 3 percent for the day.

The report claimed Jobs was rushed to the emergency room after suffering "a major heart attack." CNN later removed the posting from iReport.com and disabled the user's account.

EXECUTIVES

Facebook's Co-Founder Leaving

Facebook, the most popular social-networking Web site, said co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is leaving to start a new company. Justin Rosenstein, a software engineer, will also depart to work with Moskovitz, Facebook said. They will develop Web-based productivity software for businesses, Rosenstein said on his Facebook page.

Moskovitz and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook from their Harvard University dorm room in 2004, before dropping out of school to work on the site full time.

MEDIA

Gannett Taps Line of Credit

Gannett borrowed $1.2 billion under its unsecured revolving credit lines, bringing the total amount of such debt to about $1.9 billion. The money is being used to repay commercial paper, and the latest amount bears interest at 0.18 percent over the prime rate, the McLean-based newspaper publisher said in a regulatory filing. The company said Wednesday that it would tap credit lines, without saying how much it was borrowing.

NETHERLANDS