Somehow I think it is less naïveté and more ax to grind. Rex talked to the press. Pegula and Whaley have publicly exhibited their disdain for local media. IMO, in response the media has adopted an "eviscerate you in fiction", or at least in half-truths and petty attacks, approach to their interactions with DW and TP, and to a lesser extent even KP. So much so that, at the time of his firing, they were trying to paint Rex as a sympathetic figure whose firing was a sign of the dysfunction at OBD, instead of the more realistic and obvious view that his presence was in large part responsible for it, supported by the mess he left in NYC.