Because politicians believe, probably correctly, that journalists decide elections. When journalists come knocking for favours they get them. It's the same sto

Because politicians believe, probably correctly, that journalists decide elections. When journalists come knocking for favours they get them. It's the same story in Germany, France, Spain etc. Less so in the UK where newspapers are more diverse and have mostly either gone paywalled and stabilised, or have such huge popularity and reach (e.g. Daily Mail) that they can be profitable off of traffic and ads. But most countries have a lot of newspapers all hard to differentiate from each other due to journalistic groupthink. They can't/won't compete by altering the way they report news, so they are reduced to calling in favours in capital cities.