A tactic used in some almost autocratic countries is to pay for lots of ads in the press, ensuring that the press stays friendly to the payer. It's legal, it passes first scrutiny, and it's effective. NYT wouldn't want to lose a big client, so they will be thinking twice before publishing a damaging article.

I don't think 100k a month can break NYT journalism integrity (their revenue is 1.7 billions), but not because it's too cheap, they became a propaganda mouthpiece anyway. A high quality one, that makes you believe they're not actually propaganda, which makes it so much more effective. It's easy to see Fox as propaganda, so much harder to see NYT; and they are at roughly the same levels.