It's an even better deal: companies are replacing paid advertising with free exposure from being mentioned in news stories and bonus points for "standing up for what's right". In addition, plenty of people (and the news organisations themselves) share these news stories on the very same social media, with 0 costs for the companies involved.
Overall it means increased brand exposure for less money.
> When a recession happen the first to go is marketing.
As a marketer, I have found the opposite to be true for some industries. For example, during 2007/2008 my digital marketing agency saw a big surge in business from companies who saw marketing as a way to grow lagging demand.
I guess it also had to do with cost effectiveness. Digital marketing might have been small but cheaper than paper/cable medias. Right now given the size of Google and Facebook (and the fact that their whole revenue is basically ads), it seems the advertising spend on them has become excessive and not cost effective.
As a test, you would need to control other variables, the present economic uncertainty basically rendered that impossible.
It's just the CEOs finding a convenient excuse to cut costs.