Apple changes the subject: Back to the iWatch

With Apple, the news flow never stops. It’s a river fast and rich enough to support a cottage industry of publicists, analysts and bloggers like me.

Last week the river broke its banks and splashed onto CNN, providing viewers welcome relief from hard news of terror and war.

But the story didn’t go quite the way Apple had scripted it. What was supposed to be a two-week walkup to its big Sept. 9 media event was highjacked — by accident or design — by nude celebrities.

Apple declined to comment on what must have been seen at corporate headquarters as a public relations disaster. But using the sequence of headlines on Techmeme as a proxy for the news flow — we can reconstruct the events.

They unfolded in three stages:

  • Apple starts the drumroll: Tim Cook grants an interview with Walt Mossberg, one of the late Steve Jobs’ favorite press conduits. It’s about the iPad, of all things, but it reminds news editors that Apple is about to launch its fall lineup.
  • The story gets highjacked: British newspapers report that someone has released a large cache of celebrity nudes, many stolen from password-protected photostreams stored on Apple’s iCloud servers. The story is invariably linked to reports that Apple is set to unveil a new “secure” mobile payment system.
  • Apple launches a counter-offensive: As the company tries to minimize the damage — with an official statement and another Cook interview — a series of leaks (authorized and unauthorized) eventually brings the media’s attention back to Tuesday’s event.

Below: The stories that topped the Techmeme news feed each morning when the financial markets opened (unless otherwise noted).

Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 8.54.31 AMWednesday Aug. 27

 
Thursday, Aug. 28

Friday, Aug 29:

 
Sunday, Aug. 31:

 
Monday, Sept. 1 (morning)

Monday, Sept. 1 (afternoon)

Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 8.52.53 AM

Tuesday, Sept. 2

 
Wednesday Sept. 3 (morning)

 
Wednesday, Sept. 3 (afternoon)

 
Thursday, Sept. 4

 
Friday, Sept. 5

 
Saturday, Sept. 6

Sunday morning
 
Sunday, Sept. 7

Except for press releases and officially sanctioned interviews, it’s hard to tell which of these stories were plants and which unauthorized leaks.

And while it’s tempting to speculate about the timing of the release of those celebrity nudes, at this point there’s no way to know for sure where they came from. The FBI is on the case.

Meanwhile, you can expect the drumroll to grow louder as we get closer to Tuesday, when the story will be — at least for a couple hours — under Apple’s complete control.

See also: Inside Apple Inc.’s spin machine

Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.