Shafer already fearing Apple suck-up by biz reporters

Slate.com media critic Jack Shafer is already bracing for the overly positive treatment that business journalists are destined to give Apple when it introduces the new iPhone next week.

Shafer wrote, “Like the video iPod before it, the iPhone isn’t the first to market in its category. Helio’s “Ocean” beat it by more than a month and received a positive review from the Wall Street Journal‘s Walter S. Mossberg. The Ocean is $200 cheaper than the cheapest iPhone and it does GPS, while the iPhone doesn’t. Phone tech and design are moving so fast these days that the media freakout over the iPhone indicates a press in need of imagination—or swift kick in the ass from some editors.

“Even the articles downplaying the iPhone hype—’Despite all the hype, iPhone details are still scarce,’ Boston Globe; ‘Apple shares gain on more iPhone hype,’ Associated Press; ‘There’s hype, then there’s iPhone hype,’ San Jose Mercury News; ‘iPhone Hype Has Gadget Geeks Camping and Drooling,’ Reuters—end up increasing anticipation. It’s win-win for Apple, no matter what the press writes.

“With iPhone Day a little more than a week away, the press writhing will grow only more furious. TV news cameras will stake out Apple stores and AT&T outlets to record the queuing customers. The first iPhone reviews, promoted on Page One, will flood the nation’s newspapers. Somebody in San Francisco will stab and kill his iPhone-owning roommate for the pleasure of using the touch-screen to call his mom in Decatur. Hell, Steve Jobs will probably go onto Charlie Rose to talk about his iPhone vision and give teasing clues about Apple’s next technological ‘discovery.'”

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