2 1/2 years, ago they opened up a loop hole for newspapers that they are explicitly allowed to do it (Either you pay, or when you use their free version, you must accept to be tracked for behavioural advertising).
Are they any better than facebook?
Some example news sites: www.zeit.de, www.spiegel.de
More information on this:
https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V... (german)
And https://www.consilium.europa.eu/de/press/press-releases/2021...
Look here (referenced pdf in the above url): https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6087-2021-I...
(21aa) In some cases the use of processing and storage capabilities of terminal equipment and the collection of information from end-users' terminal equipment may also be necessary for providing a service, requested by the enduser, such as services provided in accordance with the freedom of expression and information including for journalistic purposes, e.g. online newspaper or other press publications as defined in Article 2 (4) of Directive (EU) 2019/790, that is wholly or mainly financed by advertising provided that, in addition, the end-user has been provided with clear, precise and user-friendly information about the purposes of cookies or similar techniques and has accepted such use.
It applies to everyone. It's just a consequence of GDPR. The regulator has found, after complaints, that Facebook's handling of personal data was in breach. Anyone who does the same thing as Facebook will be in breach. It's just that so far, either nobody is doing the exact same thing, or nobody has raised a complaint yet, or they're still in the regulator's backlog.
Also, you're hearing about it because it's Facebook. If it were a small unknown company you wouldn't have heard about it.