Or a more reasonable assumption would probably be, if you don't have a Steam developer account then why should they cover the game since their audience probably wants the game on Steam so covering a game that isn't on Steam yet probably isn't worth the cycles given all the other games news that exists?
Its also nonsensical that somehow 'profit' is involved? You state it yet don't even bother to articulate how this supposedly works at all
Geonjaha answered it, as for the profit just think how they do it. Honestly we do not know how they pick their coverage on which game they choose. Most of these reviewers are new people hired by the press, they could also be very very disrespectful to other sites because they believe their jobs might be endangered if they were showing anything else. Also people have pressure the press to only cover Steam because players demand it and they can get them to read or watch it, they make money by doing the easy way. Another one is that the press is paid to review the games, we can never find any information about this but the possibility of this kind of scandal is real.
So ya, i made this thread and poll to see if there is any real answer, right now only 1% did get rejected but no real answers to how and why. My game has been rejected since i never get any reply back from any news reporters. There needs to be answers to how stuff works or else people with power get to stomp people.
I assume you mean has a game been rejected coverage from a news outlet because it wasn't on Steam. If so the answer is probably yes - many people use steam and if a game isn't available on the service or one of the other well known platforms (GOG, Humble) then outlets have less reason to cover it if they're focusing on popular games. It isn't some shady move for profit, it's just the business decision that makes sense.
I think there is no link between the media interest in games and the presence of these games on Steam. On the contrary, these last years indie games have become all the rage and are more and more present on the front page.
However once you get Steam you also tend to follow news and games' development through Steam. New games and offers pop up almost every day, I think the average player doesn't feel the need to look elsewhere. Just have a look at any Steam account : we have hundreds of games often waiting to be played.
