Why oh why does Apple get so much news coverage?

The New York Times asks why Apple gets a disproportionately large amount of news coverage compared to say Microsoft or even Google?

A new study confirms what some in the technology industry have long sensed: that Apple commands an inordinate amount of the media’s attention.

A yearlong look at technology news coverage by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that 15.1 percent of tech articles were primarily about Apple; 11.4 percent were about Google; and a meager 3 percent were about Microsoft.

It’s not as if Microsoft lacks for public relations people. But Apple is especially effective at seizing journalists’ attention, said Amy S. Mitchell, the deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, citing the anticipation for new devices and Apple’s “very public way of releasing products.”

Besides the fact that Apple is the largest tech company on earth by market cap, people just like reading about Apple.  The New York Times wouldn’t have even have to have left their offices to find that out according to Macjournals.  In Ex Apple CEO  Gilbert Amelio’s book, On the Firing Line, he quotes the Times:

I could well understand an extensive interest about Apple in the Bay Area and the trade press covering high tech. But why this excessive level of coverage in other locations? So I posed the question to a New York Times staffer: “You’re a New York newspaper and we’re a California company, why do you include so much coverage of Apple?”

“Because we sell more papers.”

I asked him to be more specific.

He said, “I can give you the exact statistics. When we run a strong story on Apple, we sell three percent more papers. So we run stories on Apple. That’s the bottom line.”

So there it is: Apple information sells newspapers.