Best part about this article is that the Guardian has Facebook tracking code that collects user data on it. https://imgur.com/a/UrSyt
Yes, journalism makes a bunch of money from ad impressions collected by cookies and trackers right now. No, a lot of the actors in the business don't want it that way, but they still want to earn a paycheck for the time being.
Further, I'm sure that journalists have no control over their specific page-- they can't just say "Oh it would look pretty bad if there was a content tracker on this specific page, so let's demonetize this article". No, the paper has a policy for how they collect their revenue, and I guarantee that that department is well separated from the journalism department.
Sometimes people climb hills to get to the mountains. We don't say "Why aren't you climbing mountains, I thought you were a mountain climber!? You must be a crappy mountain climber if you only climb hills.".
Why would so many sites do this for Facebook's benefit?
The sole purpose is for advertising, which is how they make money. The thumb will have the article show up to your friends, and people who have similar interests to you. The pixel also helps with advertising, because they build a picture of who you are and can give you relevant ads.
Meanwhile, a facebook thumb button is net-negative only if the guardian doesn't get paid--it essentially becomes a transaction where I pay facebook with information and then facebook pays the guardian with money.
If this assumption is false, I'm happy to continue blocking the passive pixel and thumb trackers and continue to support the guardian directly.