I get it that TechCrunch etc all need to push news at breakneck speed, but not even bothering to fact-check a PRWeb.com story is kind of ridiculous.

PRWeb is a penny-stock / SEO favorite because essentially you can pay PRWeb $499 and your story goes onto Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, WSJ, etc in their "Press Releases" sections (which in some cases appear directly next to the stock information).

Brands like the SF Chronicle have entire sections dedicated to PRWeb where anybody can borrow the SFGate credibility / wrapper and publish just about anything they like, like say a slip & fall attorney:

http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/Boston-Slip-and...

So yah, we all know that editorial standards are slipping but that was just a face plant by reporting agencies.