99% of the things you read from news sites is not written to manipulate! they are publishing those articles to get clicks and earn money from those clicks. they don't care even if bitcoin dropped to 0 or went to $1 trillion. in both cases their source of income is from those clicks aka the traffic they get.
with that said when the community is desperate for seeing positive news to justify the rise that we are having they start publishing positive news and quote people who said "bitcoin to the moon". and when the community mood is otherwise they start quoting those who said "bitcoin is gonna die".
it is more like moving with the wind rather than wanting to cause the wind!
I actually agree with you. I learned that medias doesn't really care much about anything as long as they get those views and those money from the outside. They attack all sorts of personalities, companies, and even this cryptocurrency to get in touch with the trend and get those money flowing. Although the rumors of whales paying medias to spread bias news is kind of plausible, news that is trending for clicks is still believable to me.