See, you're assuming newspapers are actually doing original reporting that's all that expensive. Many stories running in papers and on TV (especially locally) consist of "well, let's call both sides and get their quote on this" or "let's base it off this press release" or "hey, my white house source just fed me the white house's 'unofficial' take", not "ok, let's track down Deep Throat II and launch a full-scale investigation of this incident involving hours of combing through records".

The majority of "journalistic investigation" isn't hostile nowadays. What I mean by that is that they're not getting sources acting against their superiors' interest, and they're not breaking stories they've investigated. It's not like Watergate where you have dozens of people following leads for one story.