They "updated" it since I first posted. I agree with how terrible financial journalism can be, but sometimes it comes down to the writer having to pump something out and this is the only person to actually call back. It's unfortunate that that's OK with pubs and news orgs.

I don't think this is only unique to financial journalism but also common in mainstream journalism/blogging.

I'm not sure I get what the conflict of interest is... They got a quote from an analyst who works at a fund that is heavily invested in Apple stock. They properly cite that this person has a vested interest. Why is that bad journalism?

The quote was completely vapid, from some random analyst with an obvious c.o.i., and totally unnecessary for the story. Why include it at all? Maybe I'm just cynical, but I read the disclosure of her position as ad copy as much as minimally responsible journalism.

The whole story was pretty light reporting. You're right about that. I just didn't get why that one quote in particular struck you as being representative of bad journalism.

These stories come out all the time in the financial press: Apple hit some arbitrary milestone… lets try to get a one page story out of it. As long as they're disclosing interests, I'm ok with it.

At the time I made the comment, the article was two paragraphs long, the first being the actual news about Apple and the second being what I quoted. It doesn't stick out from the most recent revision as much, I agree, but I still think it's a pretty bad story.

These stories come out all the time in the financial press

Which is a big reason I dislike the financial press so much. "Event + chatter from random analysts with vested interests" is a terrible template. It's lazy, boring, and uninformative, and to me counts as bad journalism even if it doesn't cross ethical lines.

This is really a case where you can get all the information out the headline itself (and maybe a couple numbers).