Steve Jobs speaks (briefly) to the press

    By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

    The last time we can remember Steve Jobs communicating directly with a member for the fourth estate was back in January.

    Bloomberg News had picked up a rumor that Jobs needed a new liver and assigned a team of reporters to find out what was going on. When one of them managed to get through to Jobs' home phone, his response was brief and plaintive:

    "Why don’t you guys leave me alone — why is this important?"

    Well, it's happened again.

    The Wall Street Journal's Yukari Iwatani Kane, who has scored an impressive string of Apple (AAPL) scoops this year, including the first detailed report on Jobs' liver transplant, ran a story Tuesday about how, since he returned to work in June, Jobs has been obsessively micromanaging the Apple tablet project — to the dismay of some employees who had "grown accustomed to a level of freedom" while Jobs was on medical leave.

    In the course of her reporting, she e-mailed Jobs and got a rare — and typically terse — response:

    "Much of your information is incorrect."

    That's one for the scrapbook.