In the case of Apple, it's more than just the cozy relationship the press has with its subjects. No one can say they have a cozy relationship with Apple, except maybe Walter Mossberg, but Apple's stonewalling doesn't bother a lot of people. I think this is what Lyons missed.

Every time I go to an event, whether it's a trade show in Moscone or a briefing at Burson-Marsteller's office where there's just a few people, I look around at my peers/competition and what they have for gear. I would estimate between one-fifth to one-third use Macs, and knowing most of the companies they work for, Mac is not standard issue. A few have told me outright it's their own laptop, they bought it and they would never use a PC.

Apple is, in fact, quite in favor among the press, mostly because it's so widely used in higher education. This infamous picture taken in a class at the Missouri School of Journalism drives that point home (click to enlarge).

Who knows, one of those students might be sitting next to me at a future Moscone event.

This is something Jobs doesn't seem to get. He gets so cranky when asked about his health -- he snapped "Why don't you leave me alone?" at a Bloomberg reporter a while back -- but doesn't seem to realize this isn't reporters being nosy. They are genuinely worried about him. They may be reporters but they're as much an Apple fanboy as anyone else on TUAW or MacRumors who are worried sick about the founder and savior of their favorite computer company.

Again, I've been guilty of letting objectivity slip, too, so I don't fault the reporters... too much. They aren't being ghoulish in this case. But you Wall Street guys... I'm not letting you off so easy. You're responsible for people's money and for making recommendations to investors. When you ask a question, you should demand an answer. Not this pablum (transcript from Seeking Alpha blog):

Ben Reitzes - Barclays Capital

Okay, thanks a lot and nice performance. Well, given that I'm going first, I'll ask how Steve is. I hope he's doing well and I just want to know how you'll run the company differently. With Tim or the same, and if need be, if Tim, do you feel like you would be the likely candidate if the worse case scenario were to happen; were Steve unable to return? Do you feel like you would be the candidate that would steer the helm here?

Peter Oppenheimer

Ben, it's Peter. Steve is the CEO of Apple and plans to remain involved in major strategic decisions and Tim will be responsible for our day-to-day operations.

Tim Cook

Ben, let me add something to that and backup just a bit. There is extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple executive team, and they lead 35,000 employees that I would call wicked smart - and that's in all areas of the company from engineering to marketing to operations and sales and all the rest. And the values of our company are extremely well entrenched. We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that's not changing.

We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.

We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot.

And frankly, we don't settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we're wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. And I would just reiterate a point Peter made in his opening comments that I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history.

That is NOT an answer. It's certainly not one that the SEC would accept, should it actually be investigating Apple for lying about the condition of its CEO.

You're supposed to ask hard questions and demand an answer when you don't get one. No one asked Enron or Worldcom the hard questions. The result? A whole lot of pensions and 401ks wiped out and Congress pushed through Sarbanes-Oxley as a "fix" to bad corporate behavior.

Apple is unlike those companies in that it is making money, but that doesn't entitle them to a free ride by an incurious investor community. They were essentially given a pass on the stock back-dating scandal that should have dropped a hammer on the company and now they are getting a free ride on the issue of company management, one no other firm would get.

A few bloggers have called for Jobs to resign as CEO. I don't think that's right. Hey, he likes what he does and he is doing it well. Besides, Jobs, like Steve Ballmer and Larry Ellison, is one of those CEOs who's going to work to the end. They aren't going to retire to some Hawaiian island and watch the tide roll in and out.

But if he wants to conduct himself and his company like the Hermit Kingdom, then Apple should go private. Apple seems to want to have the benefits of being a public company without meeting its obligations of disclosure. So Apple should buy back all the shares necessary and take itself off the public market. That way they don't have to deal with the obligations that go with being a publicly-traded company or answer any more pesky questions.

Well, except maybe from some fanboy reporters. They'll still love Apple no matter how much it abuses them.