I don't think there is a problem with press releases, as long as journalists acknowledge them for what they are: press releases. It's fine imho for a newspaper to reproduce a press releases verbatim, if it makes it clear to the reader that no post-processing has been done.

What is not ok is to trick the reader into believing that a piece of information has received adequate treatment, when it really hasn't. There's an implicit contract of trust between the newspaper and the reader, and if that app does what it advertises, it will make the contract harder to breach.

The only way it should be acceptable is if the journalist writes "the company said X but they stand to make money off of it and I have not verified it."

I used to think that, until I read this: http://www.zerohedge.com/content/zero-hedge-conflictsfull-di...

In particular:

  | The reality is, critical readers should read analytic 
  | posts and the rest of Zero Hedge* with the blanket 
  | assumption that the author is totally "conflicted."  
  | (Phrased more logically, that the author stands to 
  | benefit from being right--imagine that).

* Replace "Zero Hedge" with "News Site", "Blog", etc.