That's a very interesting thing to try to quantify. I would say they had _more_ integrity, but risks always existed. Reuters used to have a corporate structure that would prevent it from capture, and even that didn't guarantee impartiality.

Multiple revenue streams (sales, classifieds) would make them less beholden to advertisers.

Of course they would still have to write material that sold!

I don't like to use John Oliver as a source, but there's some decent content in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq2_wSsDwkQ