I think that many journalists are sort of waltzing around the edge of this story because at least a few of them understand that there could be some serious repercussions on how shield laws are interpreted in America.
It's a very complex issue that doesn't really lend itself well to a comedy treatment. You have a very shady scenario with an Apple engineer that Gizmodo claims must have “left the phone there” (but is that true? probably we'll never know). You have a shady scenario with the finder who somehow knew or was simply a shitty enough person not to return a lost phone to the bar (that's what I'd do, and what I hope any decent human would do). You've got the embarrassing situation of Denton's gleeful love of checkbook journalism. And now you've got potential criminal activity. It's a total shit show of Silicon Valley fail, no matter what angle you look at it from.
Daily Show just chose the funniest angle to view it from, but definitely not the most accurate or comprehensive. That's fine; outside of political satire they really don't have any assumed duty or responsibility to their viewership.
That doesn't sound like criminal activity to you?
As for why they busted down Chen's door, specifically? No idea. I'm pretty sure that was not Apple's idea. If it was, we have bigger problems than how to interpret CA theft and shield laws.