Why is the NY Times running credit card industry propaganda on the front page?

This front page story in the New York Times today struck me as really weird:

Credit Card Industry Aims to Profit From Sterling Payers

The thrust of the story seems to be that if Congress passes legislation to more tightly regulate credit cards then all the people who pay their balance in full each month are going to get charged higher rates, have to pay annual fees, and lose all perks like cash back plans, etc. To me it seemed like the piece was slanted to generate opposition to the pending legislation by people who would otherwise be neutral about it (the people who pay their balances each month promptly). While I know that seems paranoid, the article completely failed to mention an obvious flaw in the thesis that credit card companies would raise rates and fees on good customers: People who pay their balances every month don't need credit cards at all, and the only reason they have them is because they can get cash back and pay no annual fee. If the credit card industry tries to raise rates on people who don't really need consumer credit they are going to lose those customers in droves. Not to mention that each credit card company is going to have a strong incentive to poach "sterling payers" from its competitors by continuing to offer perks like no annual fees and cash back.

There is a reason that all these perks evolved in the first place: it was the only way to attract and retain these "sterling payers," and new legislation that makes it harder to squeeze the less-than-sterling payers is not going to change that reality. It reminds me of the delusion currently popular with the media that just because they are losing advertising revenue their readers are going to have to pay more for content. There are reasons that free content evolved in the marketplace, and the loss of advertising revenue doesn't change any of the market forces that created free content.