It is very often possible for journalists to get papers for free. In many cases it's easy to email the author and they'll happily provide you with a copy within short timeframes. Some archives provide free access to journalists, e.g. the cochrane library.

I'm all for open access, because I think everyone should have the right to see publicly funded scientific research. But from my experience as a journalist who's written a number of pieces on scientific works it often isn't a big problem. I never had to pay for a journal article to do my work.