Bad PR and corporate acquisitions fall apart?

At the PRSA site, there’s this interesting story - Does BadPress Kill Corporate Acquisitions?

There’s been an interesting study mentioned in the quoted Reuters story – a new paper in the Journal of Financial Economics that examines the role of media in corporate acquisitions – this one being in the light of Fairfax Financial Holdings chief executive officer Prem Watsa’s stated reaction on a deal with Blackberry. 

The authors of the paper seem to conclude that managers at corporations are more comfortable presiding over broken deals than bad ones because of the effect on a manager's reputation, including future hiring prospects and earnings.

Can it be that simple to conclude that the media pre-dominantly reports negatively only when the current stock value and market performance of the acquirer will be affected by a deal?

Is the noise in the media, and some wide fluctuation in the stock market justification enough for coming to conclusions to what is good and bad business?

It may not be that simple and straight forward. The only raison d etre for such a behavior or call it knee jerk reaction from executives may be the impact such a deal would have on their resumes.

A case of individual reputation concerns overriding facts may be. Wrong?