They might be short sellers, or they might be foreign and view the US as an economic rival. There may be more incentives than just more clicks for the media.

Yet, for the last few years the media has been poopooing and economy that's by pretty much all measures was very strong.

A more likely explanation is that outside of a few specialized publications, most members of the media are just as financially and economically illiterate as the average person. I mean how many finance and economics courses do you have to pass to get a degree in journalism or communications? There's no deep media conspiracy here.