This article is a one sided look at how publishers benefit from Google without considering the other side, at all. This is not helpful for informed discussion.

If Google is 'helping' these publishers then the counterpoint is these publishers are also 'helping' Google by making the content at their cost in the first place. Without their content what will Google search? Wikipedia, blogs?

Without news content google search users will not get news context about their search queries so the search engine will lack a critical perspective and become lower quality, which will take billions of dollars of value off Google, lower its value to users and make room for other options.

Let's not pretend Google is not benefiting from news content. And since people clearly value news content producers can generate value outside of Google, and Google will need to pay to make money from that content or do without. Targeting a predatory model will make space for better models and ideas to emerge.