I can say from experience that startups definitely are paying for this kind of work. The more upscale firms will make the lines they feed the media a little les

I can say from experience that startups definitely are paying for this kind of work. The more upscale firms will make the lines they feed the media a little less obvious, and make sure you at least get the time of day with the TechCrunch's of your choice. Crowd sourced news like HN is already starting to disrupt that industry. In many ways, this is a win-win - the existing HN content evaluation makes the more content-filled submissions rise to the top, and blogs can just pluck the ones they want and report it as news to a wider audience. That said, there's definitely still a lot of stupid money floating around that space for people willing to make something new and interesting.