Comment by sillyfluke

>The coming political climate looks to be one where money is more important than the rule of law (even more so than usual), which might be bad news for a business like that.

I think this is the correct answer for explaining the timing of this announcement at least. It's one thing to use your media to fight your short sellers, it's another thing when you become the government and start fighting your shortsellers with the entire political and "judicial" apparatus in order to keep the market irrational. Or force it to accept the new reality.