Only Apple can get this sort of marketing fluff in the The New York Times very morning Wall Street will respond to the announcement about Jobs. When Endgadget calling their sources "Reliable"is sufficient for its editors, the Times is only one or two steps above MacRumors.
I think it's important to note that this isn't a New York Times piece but a Read Write Web (and an amateurly written one at that) reposted in the NYT template shell. It's a bit misleading to call it an NYT article entirely, though they should take some responsibility for republishing it.
How would it be different if they hired an independent journalist to write it? Apple gets their PR in front of analysts on the subway and the The New York Times can maintain plausible deniablity.
