From Max Willens at Digiday:

Today, publishers are still having trouble selling their Apple News inventory directly, sources said. Three cited Apple News’s limited user targeting, which doesn’t allow the use of third-party data or IP addresses, as reasons for them being unable to sell a meaningful amount of ads on Apple News. A fourth source cited Apple News’s incompatibility with the publisher’s current sales strategy, which relies heavily on programmatic advertising.
And…
But publishers contacted for this story all reported seeing steady growth in audience over the past year. For three sources, Apple News now drives more referral traffic than Facebook does.

I don’t like Apple News, but publishers’ websites have gotten so bad –bad ads, bad tracking– that Apple News has become the least worst option for many, including myself.