Here’s a great video from John Rettinger on how he was blacklisted from Apple PR when he reported his experiences from one of their products. Apple was unhappy and called him up to lambast him and demand the video be taken down. After that he was never invited to another event again.
This was a topic was something I covered last year in one of my Weekly Wrapup videos in regards to the practice of “early access journalism” where companies hold the prospect of access to early products and information over the heads of outlets reporting on that information. Piss them off and you lose that access.
It also looks like there’s some tiering to the pecking order too – Rettinger was invited to Apple events but hadn’t yet made it to the upper tier where he’d actually get early loaner product as some YouTubers and journalists do.
This is exactly how Apple picks winners and losers. Those they hand pick get early devices and lots of traffic and revenue as a result. And because these reviews are early and devoured by millions of people they tend to be the first video YouTube and other algorithms recommend for future viewers looking for review videos. Rettinger also insinuates that Apple controls some of the narrative of these early reviews and restricts what can and can’t be covered.
There’s tremendous value in having a phone review packaged up and ready to go two weeks before anyone can buy one. Losing that access costs outlets real money as it likely equals millions of eyeballs. Few outlets disclose that Apple gave them this early access. It makes you wonder how many of them coordinate their content with Apple to prevent getting blacklisted like Rettinger did.