Yep, I think you are right. At the current point in development, getting new users is actually pretty annoying for Steemit; not only do they have to check for fake accounts and spammers, they also have to pay their creation fee. At this point I think they don't really want too much media attention, but after the next hardfork there is nothing to stop them from onboarding thousands of new users every day, and at that point is should be much more interesting for them to get media coverage.