Yes I know that all journalists are scumbags. I love my profession and feel that I fit in perfectly. But there are certain ethics. If a rival breaks a story you at least mention it before writing it yourself. You do nor write utter shit to obscure that fact. There are some ethics even in the gutter. But not it appears round at iii where some bird called Darshini Shah seems a little unfamiliar with this basic principle of our profession.
It is not often I break a bid story involving a £100 million capitalised company and, even better, get its shares suspended as a result. Allow me to savour my little triumph. But last night I broke the Range Resources bid story on Shareprophets.com – see HERE
And so this morning some person called Darshini Shah wrote on the iii “newspaper”
Shares in Range Resources (RRL) have been placed into a precautionary suspension, spurring investors' hopes that the company would be announcing a merger deal. In a statement released on Monday morning, Range Resources said shares would be suspended on AIM until the company could issue "a clarification announcement in respect of a potential significant transaction".
Range's shares have also been placed in a trading halt on the Australian Securities Exchange. Some users of the Interactive Investor discussion boards suggested African Petroleum could be the potential merger partner.
Ok enough of Darshini's fantasy. The facts are that I ran the story, named the merger partner and made sure that the right folks knew and thus the shares were suspended. But Darshini reckons they were suspended, apropos of nothing and then folks on the iii Bulletin Board broke the story sometime this morning.
Darshin, love: that might suit the ii narrative but it is not actually true is it? With your ethics and love of the truth maybe a switch to PR is in order?
PS If Darshini is a bloke not a bird I apologise.