I gave up after reading a handful of those. Which of those people did Apple brief "in this way"?

Anyone could have written those articles just from the copywriting on https://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html

"We can report on Mountain Lion a half-year before it ships because Apple, for the first time, decided to give the computer press a look at a new OS X version long before its release. Normally, we see a new OS X version at most a few days before the shipping date. The early version of Mountain Lion that Apple gave us is substantially the same one that its registered developers will be able to download starting today. After using Mountain Lion intensely for a few days, I'm deeply impressed with its new convenience and security features, its subtle interface improvements, its cloud-based file synching, and its compatibility with software written for earlier versions." http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400311,00.asp

"For the past week, I’ve been using an initial demo version of OS X Mountain Lion." http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/os-x-mountain-lion/

"We got our hands on an early version of the OS -- so early, in fact, that it's something of a pre-developer build. (Heck, there isn't even an image of a mountain lion to choose from in the default wallpapers.) The version available to developers today should address some of the kinks we encountered during our testing, not that we suffered all that many hiccups." http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/16/apple-os-x-mountain-lion-...

"Apple recently briefed me on the new features and loaned me a MacBook Air loaded with a beta version of Mountain Lion. I’ve been test-driving for the past week." http://techland.time.com/2012/02/16/apples-os-x-10-8-mountai...