They would? Are you sure about this? Can you cite an authority on it? I don't know either way, except that I know from years of reading Matt Levine that the laws on insider trading are a lot more complicated than you'd assume.
https://www.quora.com/Securities-Law-Is-it-legal-for-a-journ...
But in this case I think the case history points to OP being right, though you'd likely have to have a pretty egregious and clear pattern of such activity, and it would have to be deemed material information:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone-insidertra...