I haven't read this thread in its entirety. But I venture to say that it's unlikely there would have been any prosecutable insider trading or breach of any rules with regard to shorting the stock even if it was known by the short seller that the article was coming out. That's because of the "Mosaic" defence to insider trading, and the fact (to my knowledge) that practically everything reported has emanated from publicly available information. Just my opinion having had some legal experience.
BIG Price at posting:
$2.22 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held