That has been true ever since "I supply the pictures, you supply the war"; "if it leads it bleeds" and lets not forget the main.

The only reason people are talking about it now is that newspapers are no longer in a position to dictatate terms and that, gasp, ugly discusting nerds have finally gotten a say.

Of course there are problems with the current crop of corporations in charge (and it is going to get worse, since you could have many large newspapers in the US, but there is only going to be one dominating social media platform, although which one it is can change and most certainly will), but that doesn't mean the solution is to hand power back to NYT.