In a way, I think they did, yes. I think they had a personal beef with him and were bias in their comments. I think a guy like Warriner saw a cocky 21 year old and thought he deserves more respect from him. Ditto for Keenan. When you already don't like someone it's easy to skew things into your point of few. People do it all the time.
I think Dion came into the league as a cocky, over-confident young player and it rubbed some players the wrong way. I also think he's a 28 year old man now years removed that has settled down and into a role well enough that one of the most established franchises in hockey history felt they found the right person to handle the role. There was no Captain when he came in and they really didn't need to give it to him. We are now on the third assessment group (Wilson/Burke, Nonis/Carlyle, Shanahan) that has reviewed him and thought he was fine in his role. At any one of those points he could have been removed or traded.
I bolded your rumors because I think you read too much Simmons and Cox. Those are the only reporters putting out conflict articles. This is a media center that stuck a soother in Kadri's mouth and put it on the front page of a newspaper.