I suspect that the information pulled form the journalist's profile was pretty innocuous, or else they would have made more of a big deal about it.

But at the same time, the point isn't that "the Uber GM found some hideously private information about the journalist," the point is that regardless of what their "information policy" is, the GM could access the account of the journalist, and was apparently comfortable doing so based on his own discretion and sense of propriety rather than explicit permission. If his sense of propriety was fine, and the information was innocuous, then that particular event wasn't a big deal. But it kind of makes lie of the idea that another high-level individual at Uber who may have, shall we say, different ideas about propiety could not abuse the information that Uber is entrusted with.