Techies, thanks to a bunch of dumb twitter talking heads, seem to think journalists are just rolling in bundles of cash from clicks. They're not. The vast majority of them, even the ones with upwards of 20k twitter followers, barely make any money. Influence is definitely more important to them than cash.

>helps for their other goals

To profit?

Power. You can profit from power, but you could also genuinely believe that the world will be a better place if only everyone did what you said. In both cases you need power.