The CCP seems to be quite good at practical censorship. They have a history of this - they know the Great Firewall isn't perfect, and don't seem to make a tremendous effort to plug every single hole or find and lock up everyone trying to circumvent it. They know that controlling what most people see most of the time is good enough. They also know that not making too much clear direct effort against those trying to bypass it denies the anti-censorship movement the energy of having martyrs, cause celebres, etc. It seems to work quite well.
I think they're doing the same thing here. Just take an amount of money that's rather modest in the budget of a major government, throw it at 90% of the biggest companies with a few strings attached, and presto, you effectively control the narratives in the American News Media. Most of the companies involved lapped it right up.