For the record, someone who gives an interview to a journalist almost never gets a say over what headline it gets published under. Did you read the article? I really liked the way it came out!
Also for the record, we didn't ask Assange or Snowden to start accepting donations in Zcash or anything. Or at least, I didn't. It's quite possible some other members of the Zcash community did without my knowledge.
[New account because I can't remember my password and when I ask it to the reset the password on zooko-zcash it says "sorry there is no valid email address associated with that account". Maybe it thinks "zooko@z.cash" is not a valid email address.]
ZCash, as opposed to f.e. Monero, is a private company and consciously spending time, money and effort on brand-building and PR.
Nothing really weird with that IMO.