The difference between academic publishing and news publishing is that academic funding is separate from academic publishing funding. This means it is quite natural that you should have a website hosing content without ads or personal data sinks, so that the reputable publishers are more attractive than the non-reputable ones. (Funding or promotions are often given to people who have respected publications, but it's a separate process involving peer judgement. Impact is measured not by views, but by references - useless pseudoscientific research that would do well in the advertising market is kept separate.)
Moreover, the audience is completely different. Because they're not selling ad space, it doesn't matter if they get ten readers or ten thousand. Ordinary scientific literature is difficult to read for someone who hasn't been doing it since they were 18. News media is completely different: they are fundamentally funded by advertising (both in the preonline days and now), which means they need to maximise their audience.
In any case, we have the same problem now - so the same risk exist. Right now, it's much cheaper to produce fake scientific research, and if there's any appetite for it, it's now, when there's paywalls and unreasonable fees. If you could make a profit from distributing fake research, you should be doing it right now (and arguing for strong protection of IP), instead of waiting for the day when real research is less hamstrung than fake research in terms of distribution.