It's not punishment, it's disagreement on rewards. You are around for quite a while, you should know that better.

If you see no reason to reward my content, why not continue to just go about your day? Others see a reason to reward my content.

Well, when it comes to content...

You see, if you spot a story about your uncle (lets call him "Bob") in a newspaper, it draws your attention.
Especially when it's a story on how your uncle ran away from cops after robbing a bank last Wednesday. Thing is that you were visiting him in hospital that day, because... he's there in a coma for many weeks.

So there are facts about you and your family that you know for sure, and there's this newspaper "story".
Saying that this newspaper spread an utter bullshit would be an understatement.
Wasting time to debunk this story would be a waste of your precious time.

So you just say: I'm not buying it. And it shouldn't be surprising if you start considering it a shitty source of information moving forward. Even for the weather forecast.