Is receiving a good for your own personal use or resale the same thing as receiving it for the purpose of reporting on it then returning it right after? Intent

Is receiving a good for your own personal use or resale the same thing as receiving it for the purpose of reporting on it then returning it right after? Intent here seems to be overlooked by quite a bit of the commentary. I don't see that the specific crime is important here; what's important is that goods which were technically stolen under California law were received by Gizmodo for the purpose of committing another crime under California law (revealing trade secrets). And no, calling a tech-support line in Uttar Pradesh and asking if they've recently misplaced an engineering prototype would not be considered a legitimate attempt to return the phone. As a longstanding EFF member, I just wrote to Matt Zimmerman to ask what this case could possibly have to do with journalistic privilege.