You don't know their motive unless you can read minds.
They may be reporting on this subject solely because it is a hot topic (i.e., it sells).
BTW, the New York Magazine article was pretty good for a liberal source. It started off negatively but then covered the issue pretty fairly in the body of the article.
I picked up on this concept of the media narrative changing for distractions by listening to Rush. Rush would point out that the “drive by media” (his term) would harp on non-stories that seem to be non-political when it was clear that political discussions were really bad for the Dims.