Yes, there are various editorial decisions made, directly or inferred, in any article, but that’s not the argument here. We’re talking about the explicit editorial decision of calling this handover a “bribe”. “Bribe” infers intent, which cannot be definitively proven without evidence that they don’t have. It’s insanely obvious to any reasonable party that the intent is there, but that is the line between spoonfeeding and reporting. They report on what they can prove, and any extrapolations will be left to you as the reader by any news agency that respects their reader in the slightest and isn’t just trying to make you believe something. Anything else is propaganda or a tabloid, and I don’t want to read it.

I don’t think I can rebut your argument in “that fear of getting sued… freedoms” because I just do not think it is grounded in what actually happens, but not sure we can do much but just agree to disagree on that one. Fwiw, I think most reputable news agencies avoid this exact thing very consistently and always have tried to.