It's always been the case that big advertisers influence the media that cover them. In the quaint old days there was a metaphorical "wall" between the business side and the news side, and neither could influence there other. In theory, that is. In practice, at a high enough level, the wall was less of a 16' fence topped with razor wire and more like police tape.
Of course, we don't live in the quaint old days. There's no distinction between news as journalism and news as business. Writers are measured not on how good their reporting is, but on how much "engagement" it gets, which is just a proxy for how profitable.
Is it a bribe or buyoff? Or just a failure of credibility? Newspapers used to have a position called the ombudsman to address just this scenario. The New York Times had a position called Public Editor. That position was eliminated in 2017[1]
Of course, we don't live in the quaint old days. There's no distinction between news as journalism and news as business. Writers are measured not on how good their reporting is, but on how much "engagement" it gets, which is just a proxy for how profitable.
Is it a bribe or buyoff? Or just a failure of credibility? Newspapers used to have a position called the ombudsman to address just this scenario. The New York Times had a position called Public Editor. That position was eliminated in 2017[1]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_editor