All legacy media sucks and has as its single purpose the deconstruction of the US as a world power.
Yet, they still operate with little accountability.
Why?
Those free sources included democrat war rooms that PAID people to talk then handed 'packets of news stories on - even doing the research that showed if more obviously self serving stories were included that more of the 'other' stories in the packet would be published (knowing editors liked to anguish over choices so they could fool themselves into thinking they weren't selling out)...
The result?
Disgruntled people in 'intelligence services' and the manipulative in the Democrat party took control of news content.
Those groups created the death bargain - "news and insider info" in exchange for papers being able to dump journalists... A process that created less trust from the subscriber and viewers and more dependence on corrupt elite forces.
In short a government controlled press where the press voluntarily gave up their ability to report honestly.