Agreed completely. Not only is this not even news, it's not worth caring about... it's just a squabble with TC being the loudmouth, rallying it's readers against some target we're supposed to care about because they said so.
The best thing AP could've done, would be to pay the 17.50$ with a nice gift card, buy the headphones for all their CEOs or "come clean" in some other humorous way. Instead, they behave like a little child.