Score One for the MSM.

Lost amid the hubbub of a possible iPhone recall -- or, at the very least, an expensive fix -- is a heartening media story:

A 74-year-old publication with no advertising, no publicity photos, but a respectable 8 million subscribers may have given Steve Jobs the biggest headache of his life.

Three days ago, Consumer Reports said it "can't recommend" the new phone. Oh, and they called Apple liars -- "Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion..." -- and said AT&T wasn't the culprit.

So, in an era of epinions and buzzillions, is this staid dinosaur still relevant? No one knows what effect Consumer Reports will have on sales (TechCrunch says the mag is "completely schizophrenic") but this poll of Journal readers suggests Apple might suffer, at least a bit.

Anyway, CR's verdict garnered headlines all over the place, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. According to Reuters, this isn't lost on Apple, which has been "in talks" with the magazine's researchers.