"pretending to care about the news cycle"... yes, of course multi-billion dollar multimedia organizations will hold the presses for you while you concoct some puff-piece story to be ready for 4am to corner the insomniac news market.
As my former-Marine uncle put it "losers always have a thousand excuses". Not saying this author is a loser, but the whole piece comes off as a whinging self-excuse with the whole tone being "I could easily have been great if I was bothered".