They knew when to hold em. Knew when to fold 'em. Just not when to walk away and when to run.
Either it’s not paywalled for them or it’s still good journalism and maybe journalists shouldn’t work for free.
No one implied they should work for free. In fact (according to rumors) there are several alternatives for writers to monitize their content without completely walling off the articles.
Google “how writers monitize their content on the internet” it should give you some good insights, as it’s not a very complicated topic.