Fake denials
A lot has been written about "fake news" over the last month so but how about ruminating on the growing amount of duff - or perhaps we should call them "fake" - denials.
Today, for example, French aerospace company Safran announced it is buying rival Zodiac Aerospace for EURO 8.5 billion.
Last year, though, Bloomberg broke the story in April 2016 that Safran was looking at buying Zodiac only for the story to be met by an off-the-record denial from "sources close to the companies", which was kindly aired by Reuters.
Then in June 2016 French publication Lettre de Expansion broke a fresh story about Safran preparing to launch an offer for Zodiac. Again, "sources close to the companies" denied the story was accurate, with one source telling Reuters "there is nothing. this is wrong".
Clearly, however, the Bloomberg and Lettre de Expansion stories weren't "wrong".....