While that was probably tongue-in-cheek and meant to be humorous, Walt Mossberg is one of the more respected tech reviewers and is pretty clear on his ethics policy, which you can read here.
Mossberg and a few others are pretty well known as "controlled leak" sources for Apple: they're respected, they tend to not go for the crap/shock value, and they're usually quite appreciated by Cupertino.
An Apple exec can pick up a phone and give Mossberg a few actual facts (a bit hidden in the subtext of inquiring about his health, let's not be too overt), I don't think there's anything in that which would go against his ethics policy. Though I may have missed that section.
http://allthingsd.com/about/walt-mossberg/