Matt Taibbi has a good article on this too https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-i...
Glenn Greenwald talks about this on his Substack a lot, too, and the malpractice of the larger media as a whole. This recent and highly topical Twitter thread is one of many examples.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/138376788266898...
But yes, when an opinion writer has unpopular opinions, they are often let go.
something can be news somewhere [0], and not news somewhere else [1].
[0] https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...
Trend stories (like you talked about with McDonald's) are considered "soft news" and is filler.
Meanwhile, the person we are talking about was published on the editorial page. That's not "discretion about what news to publish". That is literally "this is opinion only"