One of the less speculative ones is that a lot of the NYT's glossy front-page publicism would be rendered much more difficult and expensive if government goodwill were withdrawn from it (and so it could no longer embed its staff with US military campaigns, would lose access to quotes from "anonymous defense officials" and what-not and might not be among the first to be informed if e.g. the government wants to tell the press that they shot down an Iranian drone). This probably extends to access to insiders who are not directly employed by the US government, but part of the wider "beltway culture" (work for think tanks, government contractors and sub^n-contractors etc.) and therefore under significant social (and maybe professional, to the extent they require security clearance) pressure to at least outwardly defend US government interests and shun those who are considered to be a risk to them.