Apple Also Inviting Australian Journalists to June 6th WWDC Keynote

It must be something really big, Think on the scale of the iPad, maybe even bigger.

Amazing! Down under actually got invited to something. :rolleyes:

[...]The tweet has now been removed, [...]

Somebody asked if Apple pays for airfares when they invite overseas media to WWDC, Macworld etc. You bet they do! The cost of a journo coming all the way from Australia, HK, London etc would be more than any newspaper, magazine or individual journalist could justify, and then there's accommodation.

Let me tell you how this all works.

Apple AU invites a select handful of Aussie media to a key event like Macworld (no longer, of course) or WWDC. The media they invite tend to be very pro-Apple, or at least not at all critical. Apple does NOT invite any journalist they think they can't control and won't get 100% positive editorial out of.

You just have to look at the 'journalists' they have most often invited and you'll see these are the biggest Apple shills this side of the Pacific Ocean, people who get a lot of space in print or on TV but never speak a critical word of Apple, in fact they go the other way and blindly parrot the Apple line in the most sycophantic manner.

From time to time Apple has invited someone who has refused to bathe in the Kool-Aid and dared to suggest that the iPhone or iPad isn't perfect - not a big nasty sledge, just a fair & balanced telling of the facts as they see them - and Apple has then made a point of NOT inviting that person again.

So here is how it goes with these junkets. Apple AU invites its chosen few. They're flow business class to the US and put up in a five-star hotel, all expenses paid of course. Because they arrive the day before the event Apple usually arranges some fun casual activity for them, and a dinner the night before the event. Then the media attend the event, and as soon as it's over they get an infodump from Apple AU PR immediately afterwards for local pricing and release dates. There's also a private demo session which tends to repeat the on-stage demo, give journalists a little hands-on time so they can claim they got hands-on with the product and make their rushed initial puff piece sound like a review. You don't ask questions in this briefing because there is either no time because the demo runs the length of the session or because there is no point because Apple won't give any answer unless the information is already in the press release. So forget about trying to get useful information.

Then its off to write stories before a big dinner, a free day the next day and then business class back home again.

And that's why so many of the regular journalists will not raise one critical note of Apple, will not even question any of Apple's statements and assumptions, because they will then be dropped off the junket list which means those scoop 'First review!' stories and business class flights and frequent flyer points and days to play in San Francisco at Apple's expense would vanish.