Any society that can't draw a distinction between marketing and journalism probably doesn't have a long shelf life. In the past, news orgs could enforce a firewall between news and advertising, and advertisers generally respected it as a norm (to the point that allowing advertising to influence news/editorial would cause a scandal). For a variety of reasons -- declining profitability of journalism, the existence of powerful platform monopolies, and the nature of attentional economics on the web -- those norms have eroded, and society is the poorer for it. (Ironically, I think WaPo is actually more insulated from this kind of interference, just because any direct interference would land on Bezos' doorstep rather than Amazon as a corporate entity).