I'm calling it stolen mostly because the finder tried to sell it to Engadget, and then successfully sold it to Gizmodo. He found a lost prototype, and instead of leaving it at the bar with the management, contacting the owner, or dropping it in a package to send back, he tried to make money off of it. He clearly not only knew it belonged to Apple, but he knew the specific person after browsing through the phone and looking into the Facebook app on it.

As for other press, it all depends. Basically bribing people to break NDAs (with the $10,000 offer Gawker did with the iPad) or paying $5,000 for lost gadgets doesn't provide me with any important news. They are just gadgets. If someone bends the law a bit to put in a hidden camera to expose my food possibly having salmonella, that I'm OK with. The job of a journalist is to serve the public and provide them with needed information. The job of a tabloid writer is do whatever it takes to sell more papers (or online ad views). Gawker is clearly in that second category, catering only to their ad buyers, and not their readers.

I've generally given up on most US based news sources for the same reason. They make up very sensationalized stories about killer escalators or something to get you to tune in and pay attention to their ads, instead of focusing on really important stories and having their journalists do their real job.