I broke into this industry as a reporter in the mid-1990s. I didn't cover AOL's stock when it shot into the stratosphere, but I was one of the few reporters whose beat included Rambus, which at the time was trying to revolutionize the DRAM industry.

At one industry event, the Rambus vice president of marketing approached me and called me a liar, to my face, after reporting that the company's licensees were bad-mouthing it and its contracts behind its back. (Years later, Rambus finally filed suit against those same companies, alleging collusion during the period I wrote about.) I received emailed insults; we all did.

If I had written those stories while owning the company's stock, I would have been fired. I would have expected it. The San Jose Mercury News's Chris Nolan was suspended for participating in a friends-and-family stock deal with a company called AutoWeb.com, and Nolan hadn't even written about the company. R. Foster Winans, the author of the Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy for tipping off a pair of stockbrokers. And Thom Calendra of MarketWatch resigned in 2004 after an SEC inquiry, which raised questions of whether or not Calendra owned stock in companies he was writing about, according to BusinessJournalism.org, which also summarized the Nolan and Winans cases.

Here's my question: to my knowledge, Rose has never claimed to be a journalist. But he performs many of the functions that a journalist does: including breaking Apple news on his blog. He discusses (comments upon?) news on Diggnation. Does this make him a journalist? I don't know.

Rose doesn't seem to have moved the market for Apple shares today. About an hour Digg tweeted, Apple shares dropped from $88 to $85, and they bounced around a bit for the rest of the day. Edit 6:05 PM: Here's the reason why, apparently.. A second report contradicts the first.

And Rose also added this:

@cabel I'm talking about buying it back after jobs steps down, not after I tweet

Is Rose covering his butt? I don't know. Rose has scored some scoops in his time, and I respect him for that. I have no problem with him profiting from the additional Web traffic and prestige such scoops afford. No one should.

But I will say that when someone of Rose's stature publicly comments on a company, (directly or indirectly) breaks news about it, and then publicly tells the world that he has sold his stock after he sold it, well, I'm sorry: it stinks to me. But I'm also a little less inclined to be critical this evening, as there's been quite a bit of hype surrounding Jobs' health. I guess I'll pose this question to you, the readers: should we care?

(Since someone will ask: I don't own a single share of stock at the present time, tech-related or not, nor have I for months.)

Edits made at 6:15 PM to reflect the Gizmodo report.