Yes, paying customers and advertisers are a very important part of that calculus, I agree. We know from the work done by Soley and Craig [1] that newspapers will refrain from publishing unflattering stories that could jeopardize major sponsorships. None of this changes the principle argument that the driving calculus for major news organizations is profit driven instead of driven by public interest.
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/20460787