One of the things to keep in mind is that it's possible that there's just no SEO solution. 6 years is a long time, and the web + Google News + everything around it has evolved quite a bit. Sometimes it's not a technical issue, sometimes it's not something you can fix by just "buying a bunch of links", sometimes it's just that the site strategy is now obsolete. You can have a fantastic website, make it super-fast, have "high authority & trustworthiness" (however you want to define that), but if you're selling VHS cassettes, you're going to have a bad time. It's more obvious when there's a physical product involved, but if content is your product, it applies just as well.
He might as well have said "old school" here as in VHS cassettes, record players, conservative views, traditional values, etc.
Sometimes it is just Google not liking your content for be it for political or other reasons. Sadly, that's a fact of life now here in AMERIKA the "progressives" like Google are trying push these days.
I'm surprised he didn't end his comments with Good Night Comrades!
But on a serious note, whatever Big Tech gives, they can easily take away. Just like the mouse that gets caught in the mousetrap because he didn't understand that the big hunk of cheese is not free. Don't get caught in Google's mousetrap of relying solely on their search results or their ad products for your needs. Diversify and spread your site advertising or marketing out by as many ways possible. Use traditional methods of spreading your site by exchanging links with other similar sites, guest post blogging, etc.
I have never liked the idea of Google Ads, etc. I never participated in that or anyone else's ads because all I could see is them taking your $100 for ads and giving $10 to some computer sweat shop in Asia somewhere to sit there and click on your ads all day while Google pockets the other $90.
Then there are the people who sit there and compete with others in the auction type atmosphere where they bid the highest for the spots on the first page. The kid in Asia gets the same $.02 cents for clicking on your ad while Google pockets even more money per click.
In traditional advertising it was already a gamble with how many saw your ads. But sometimes they would do things like using publicly accessible state traffic surveying numbers and counts for deciding when to expand roads, etc. Advertisers could say the state survey showed 30,000 cars passing by a day to gain some idea of how many people you could expect to see your ads, etc. Today Google just gives estimates on potential clicks and people pluck down money by faith on what Google reports and says when it comes to how many people clicked on your links. That's like asking the fox how many chickens are in the hen house when he is guarding it. You won't get the real number until it is too late. The same can be true with your marketing money thrown out to Google, Facebook, etc. JMHO.
First and foremost, Google is an advertsing company. The search engine, Gmail, etc. is just a means to the end which is making money. They will shift the results to whoever pays them the most and to those who are like them. That's just the way it is now. :-( In the end, I just gave up on Google and the rest of them (organic SEO) and don't let the stress of their every update make you live on a emotional rollercoaster. JMHO.
It just confirmed what some of us have known all along and that is that if Big Tech doesn't like what your site is about for whatever reason, you've got a better chance of seeing a cold day in Hell than you will of seeing your website in their SERPS. 
