Pretty much. That's my theory anyway.
With the over-exaggerations of Hinata's character and giving her more credit than she really deserves and just putting down Sakura like no tomorrow and not giving her the credit is just horrible.
You can tell even here in the RtN movie. Here we have Hinata who really is a complete b*tch, sorry, but no one has said anything against this. Yet we have Sakura the exact same way and they still don't see her in a better light lie they should.
Why? Does the anime corrupt it? I am not sure. It helps, but is this really the underlying act? Again, I can only say this is my theory. Whenever Kishimoto gets involved in the story, Sakura is seen as a caring loving girl who sometimes flies off the handle because Naruto does something stupid. In all honesty, he deserves it, but she never beat him just because she was angry which is how some scenes got played out.
At times, Sakura was even seen like Naru from Love Hina. Getting jealous and hitting Naruto, then deny her feelings. Which is not how she is at all.
Still you can't ignore the fact there are many Hinata scenes that gave her waaaay too much credit than she really deserved. Her confession scene is one of them. It was really changed dramatically just to show that Hinata didn't just run in there to get owned. Im sorry, but this is one fact that can't be denied nor can it be denied that because we know Pierrot favors Hinata she gets more credit than the manga.
There are also many Naruto fans who watch only the anime and not the manga.
(I don't count fillers at all, bare in mind.)
Call me crazy, but whenever Kishimoto gets involved in stuff besides the manga, I can tell a difference. The characters just behave differently. It's hard to see with an untrained eye, but it is noticeable.
I erased my post from here since I was planned to post it on the H&E's NaruSaku Debate Thread but I have to reply it because I totally agree with you there!
The anime heavily influences people's opinions about the characters. Most people tend to watch the anime and then start reading the manga, even if the manga show that the character in question isn't that way the anime portrayed him/her, the opinion is already formed and probably will not change easily.
Taking it into account we have the anime team portraying Hinata much better than she is in the manga, They make her scenes much bigger than they really are, They practically portrayed her as character without flaws, They even gave her healing abilities and a past in which she was bullied by other children, traits that actually belong to the series heroine aka Sakura.
But then when it's Sakura, they increased her fangirl side in part 1 and now they tend to increase her tsundere traits (This isn't because she's tsundere, the problem here is how they portray it, they make Sakura hit Naruto for everything when in fact she only hit him when she has a reason ... a very good reason to do it).
oh and of course, they keep giving Hinata shining moments and screen time in fillers, making her appear more important than she actually is while they don't do the same to Sakura .. when was the last time that Sakura had a centric episode?! ...I just can remember one in the entire serie while hinata has a lot and even one of them had one of the best animations of the entire serie.
you can also add the fact that the Hinata's character revolves around her crush for Naruto, which means that the more focus Hinata receive, the more focus NH will receive too. which explains a bit why NH is so popular in the West, since here people tend to watch more the anime than read the manga.
I don't think that the anime team have done it intentionally, but it shows how much the anime can help or hinder a character. Sakura isn't the only one, Naruto and Karin's characters also suffer because of the way that Pierrot portray them, but Sakura is the one that is most damaged because people tend to compare her with Hinata and because she stands in the NaruHina way.
