Ah gotcha on BGFV. Still it seems like a stretch. Instead of the company going to all that trouble, why not just announce a $10M stock buyback. Easy to do with their growing cash horde and no debt. Such an announcement would send the stock rocketing higher and squeeze the shorts imo
If they wanted to thwart shorts by pointing out business is humming why not issue a PR that investors are actually likely to read as opposed to an obscure local news piece?
The more likely reason for the news piece is to get a wider pool of applicants from people who watch local news. It’s certainly cheaper than other recruiting approaches.