They think their coverage is independent just because their boss isn't dictating their every move, but they never stop to think why they were hired for the job and not somebody else.

They also often seem to have self-servingly narrow definitions of what things like "independence" and "bias" really mean.

Ars Technica has recently given the Apple Studio desktop some very positive coverage, and I saw some (downvoted) comments on their articles accusing them of bias. I won't debate whether their coverage is biased because it's not really the point. What is the point is that saying that Apple isn't paying you isn't really a good defense.

There's more to inducement than just being paid directly by an outside party for positive (or negative) coverage. There's also things like "If I give this a positive review, will Apple (continue to) send my company early review units?" and "Does Apple advertise on the site, and if so and my review is less than glowing, might they decide to pull their ads?"

I'm not saying that's the case, of course, just that so many other potential sources of conflict of interest get swept under the rug.