I agree that money probably isn't the thing. I would imagine the average Apple engineer would realize that the payment for leaking would have to be massive to offset the damage to career / loss of earnings from the damned good job they already have. Maybe it's the sense of getting away with something? Like a super lame, mundane version of Thomas Crown--life is going well in pretty much every category so raise a little hell just to see if you can?

One can be smart enough to work at Apple and also be dumb in a lot of ways. It's easy being manipulated ("nobody will know it was from you! you're a confidential source"), and it's definitely easy to think of yourself above all laws, or at least too smart to ever get caught.

That's completely fair.

But being cynical the journalist would want to give the source some money as it locks them in

seeing something that you said show up on the front page of a popular website... and knowing that it was you and only you, with your underutilized expertise in your under appreciated role, that made that possible...

you can’t really buy that