From all the comments here and elsewhere CR was in an unwinnable position. If they helped Apple before going to press they would have been branded as biased, influenced, or open to corporate influence. If they altered their standard tests just because Apple had a bug then they would be favoring Apple by changing the test just for them. By publishing their results they were accused of targeting Apple and had their testing methodology questioned by people who really don't understand what's being tested. By re-testing they're now subject to being called unprofessional, useless, etc.
That's the problem these days with journalism. People only want journalism that supports their presuppositions and bias. Anything else is an outright attack on their identity and can't be tolerated. People, and reports clearly indicate millennials as being especially so, are trusting rather blindly in anonymous reviews that are largely sponsored by the companies or are even offered for sale.
https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...ports-in-the-age-of-the-amazon-review/477108/
Many of the consumer protections we enjoy today originated from the unbiased reporting of Consumer Reports. They're not perfect but I admire their stance of neutrality when everyone else seems to have an agenda to sway you to either 1) convince you to purchase because they were given a discounted/free device, 2) click on their buy-through links (if you have bad reviews people won't click through, eh?), or 3) convince you to buy something else because the review was a negative review purchased by a company.
Sad state of affairs. People love throwing out the "fake news" thing now. People should be equally concerned about fake reviews, bought reviews, influenced reviews, and other things from people with vested financial interest.
money talks, ******** walks.
