There are no paid submissions to HN, nor is there an elaborate conspiracy between HN and "certain media orgs" to get paywalled links onto the front page.

This is the sort of nonsense tangent crud that the mods would normally zap to the bottom of the thread as "off topic". But they probably won't here, because it concerns their own moderation, and they're generally loathe to intervene --- even to clean up the threads --- when the optics of doing so are complicated.

So, if you're interested in helping them keep threads clear of conspiracies between HN and the NYT, it's helpful to know that the "flag" button for comments is revealed when you click the timestamp on the comment.