On the contrary, I read / listen to news constantly.

The issue I take, is that there's actually very very little legitimate news being promoted. Blogs and detailed substack's have way WAY more interesting content than the New York Times on most topics.

The problem is group think, their articles / investigations tend to be just an opinion piece masked in "research". That's not to say it's all that way, but it often is.

Collaborations are occurring because they quite literally have to share the story to keep the narrative(s) the same. There's only so many stories there allowed to comment on and only so many views they can get for their content. Collaborations are necessary to ensure revenue sharing.