I think standing up for basic principles of journalism is a life-or-death issue, the life-or-death being that of democracy and other good things which comes from honest social discourse. Tolerate lies to generate clicks in small things, shrug at big lies (eg "WMDs in Iraq").
But whoever used the metaphor of the FFA and the press lining up to take kicks at Welnix's testicles while they are unable to fight back is spot-on. I used the "when we bend, do we spread? who's got the Vaseline?" metaphor, to similar effect.