I've heard a lot of bad things about Wallace's journalistic ethics - basically misrepresenting the actual story, not the big lines but lots of the details, for stylistic effect. He was not a rigorous searcher of actual truth, just some kind of idealized "emotional truth", and in an era where "alternative facts" is considered an acceptable way to respond to an outright lie, that's not something to emulate. It's been a while so I don't have the exact links to the articles that mention this. (I think some of it was in the biography of Wallace by DT Max.)

Also, that cruise ship essay makes him look like a complete asshole.

It kind of reminds me of that book, The Lifespan of a Fact, about the protracted struggle between "literary journalist" John D'Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal.

This kind of thing pisses me off, even if it's considered great writing. I've personally been interviewed by a rather well-known journalist (my only interview of my life, I am neither famous nor notable), and in the resulting piece there were questions I was never asked and answers I never gave. Thankfully the false words he put in my mouth were not so bad, but what if it had been something actually important? So this kind of stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth.