The people of import who are shorting TSLA (Chanos etc) aren't exactly working on a journalist's salary.
More importantly, the short interest has been high for ages, and TSLA has received a ton of positive press in that time, as well.
I'm not convinced the journalists themselves are shorting anything (though I'd still like to know), but I don't think it's an accident that journalists are getting tips over silly minor crap like someone taking a well-earned vacation.
In other words, I really don't think this kind of press silliness is accidental and "random Tesla guy takes vacation" isn't usually a hot news story.
I'm half tempted to start asking the authors of these pieces to declare any positions they have in the stock.