He has used that speculation to kind of refute other people's different speculations. So he did more than just report it... he bought into it and used it to tell other people they were wrong.
I'm disappointed. I thought you would link to something where he told someone that they were wrong. Instead, he said conditionally that if the speculation pans out, then he "may be" wrong about a reason why something was observed. It wasn't a refutation, but just offering an alternative hypothesis.
That seems like a perfectly guarded statement, self-aware of its speculative basis.
How do you know? I always thought journalists had some basic level principles about their jobs, until I heard from a first hand witness that you can actually buy some of them with good money...
