I think that there's a potential different story with this. He felt that he had no option but to do work, even though he was so sick that he failed at the job. What's up with that? How insecure and pressured is his employment?

If it's not true then the error is on him. But it seems plausibly bad to me as an outside observer of US employment and healthcare customs. And the precarity of journalism nowadays. It is a sad state of things, as in it could be more a systemic than individual failure.

Circumstances can help explain, but never excuse unethical behavior