This amounts to a bribe paid to the newspapers to perhaps tone down their narrative on FB. Nothing has to be explicitly stated except it's the old don't bite the hand that feeds you methodology. Much like those absurdly high speaking fees Clinton took in from places like Goldman Sachs. Or all those generous payments to the Clinton Foundation. They all amount to "legal bribery".
Yes, but the problem for them is that they believe it is whom you know, rather than what you know, that matters.