Gizmodo helped kick off this most recent round of Jobs frothing with in December, in which Jesus Diaz wrote, "According to a previously reliable source, Apple misrepresented the reasons behind Macworld and Jobs' keynote cancellation. Allegedly, the real cause is his rapidly declining health. In fact, it may be even worse than we imagined."

"Previously reliable source," "allegedly," "may be even worse than we imagined"--Diaz is no Woodward and Bernstein, but he turned out to be, if not exactly right, then not exactly wrong either. The story got lots of attention, and apparently caused Apple stock to drop.

That's the reporting Lam addresses in his blog post. He's, um, conflicted about it:

Publishing rumors about Steve Jobs' health is one of the most distasteful things I've done in a long time...Professionally, I think we did what we were supposed to do... I am proud of the work I did with Jesús Diaz on this series... And over the last two weeks, I've hated my job and sometimes, myself, too.

I'd like to think that Lam speaks for all the Wollfs, Bloombergs, and Blodgets of the world, that they're all at least a little ashamed of what they've done this week. As the redoubtable John Gruber , "Here's a hint: When you're actually proud of your work, rather than just telling yourself you're proud of it, you sleep well at night."