I thought the interesting point of the article really had to do with the first amendment/censorship issues possibly raised by the way the NFS/NPS are inconsistently implementing their commercial permitting policies. Since those policies appear to hinge on pretty subjective criteria (e.g. whether the content will be "news" or not), it is not surprising that there is inconsistent handling. To me, it is not surprising that some local officials might decide to interpret those rules as excluding commercial activities that would lead to messages the service doesn't like. Or that the rules could be used to make it harder for such projects to take place even if it isn't explicit policy.
That would seem to be a genuine problem.
If the permitting process is about protecting the wilderness, then I would think the only content that should matter from an official perspective is the timing, extent, and type of intrusion expected, not the message.
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