I have heard that tc requires the startups they write about to give them exclusivity on future news. Since many of the startups are just happy to have coverage they go along with it. I have no idea if this is true (mike can you confirm/or note your policy) but if it is, would that be moving towards what you are talking about?

To answer your questions Mike M, most tech bloggers (the people featured on Techmeme) are Apple fans thats why.

I remember attending the blog business summit in October. About 90% of the people blogging the event were doing so on Macs. Whereas 90% of the world uses PC’s.

Like it or not tech bloggers are Apple fans. I could care less about the iphone. All the blog drama about it is interesting in a soap opera kind of way but nothing more than that for most people.

For all the techy talk about “how great” they are most people will never own a Mac. iPod? lots of people love em. A huge win for Apple.

iPhone? maybe. Time will tell.

In most any field, it’s standard PR practice to try to barter favorable access for prominent coverage. Is favorable coverage an unspoken part of the bargain? Yes. Dave’s right about that.

But Arrington’s is right, too. The access-for-coverage dynamic itself doesn’t explain why some stories explode into to page-view and and blog-post orgies. Why iPhone and not any one of a zillion other stories that get pimped with a promise of an exclusive CEO interview? Why does Techmeme have so many entries about iPhone. Why is the New York Times covering it on Saturday in the business section when the announcement came on Tuesday? Why can’t I stop thinking about it, reading about it, blogging about it, and commenting about it? Why can’t Dave? Why can’t Mike?

Some politicians, some companies, some movies have heat. The media can sense when they’re not simply delivering up their audience, but winning new readers and viewers by covering hot stories.

There must be a there there.

Thats all I was trying to say 8).

As for the story at hand – why not cover Apple? People obviously wanted to hear about it, so why not feed them the story? I think the coverage on Apple was just right, as judged by the people interested.

The real problem here is that Apple’s fans, who are overpaid snobs, keep buying Apple’s products even when they are overpriced, underfeatured and overengineered compared to products from competitors. As that LA Times piece said, the Japanese already have iPhone-type devices and they refuse to pay more than US$100 for them, not US$600. Don’t stop covering Apple, but don’t swallow their marketing line either.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-japanphone11jan11,0,6424968.story