Yes, paranoid. In this specific case, the station had already gone viral for being in the middle of nowhere. That was not an original framing by the author, it was an existing framing that they gave context for. If anything, their framing is positive, since they explained that while it looked bizarre, it had a rational explanation.

Maybe if they came up with the "middle of nowhere" framing themself, you'd have a point. But they didn't.