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The news industry should continue reporting news-worthy stories, be these/they bad or good, to ensure its profitability.

I'd thought I could use either in the above sentence, but after running a quick search for both phrases on Ludwig.guru, I found some examples of the latter, but none of the former.

Also, Grammarly suggests that I change these to they. So, is it really incorrect to use these here? Why?

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This is the subjunctive, a very formal construction in English, more commonly used in AmEng today than in BrEng. When a compound sentence or a main clause begins with "be" the subject must follow, and this may take the form of a subject pronoun. In the OP's example it means whether… or not.

… be they good or bad
… whether the news-worthy stories are good or not.

  • be he/she/they wealthy or poor…
    be it early or late…

  • whether he/she is wealthy or not…
    whether they are early or not…
    whether it is early or late…

You would not use the object pronouns (him, her, or them) but you could use a determiner. As the following phrase is an idiom, we cannot substitute "that" without changing its meaning.

be that as it may…
Building a new children's home will cost a lot of money but, be that as it may, there is an urgent need for the facility.
Cambridge Dictionary

There is a famous children's story called Jack and the Beanstalk, and these lines are snarled by a giant.

Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum.
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he living, or be he dead,
I’ll grind his bones to mix my bread

Nowadays, especially in BrEng, we'd say "If he's alive or dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

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    Thanks for such a detailed and informative answer. However, it seems to me that the main question hasn't been addressed here. Or has it? Am I missing something?
    – An IELTS Learner
    Commented Jun 3 at 13:24
  • I thought the answer was clear, use "they" instead of "these" if you want to write formally otherwise write whether these [the news-worthy stories] are good or not.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jun 3 at 13:36
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    Subject pronouns are "I, you, he, she, it, you (plural) and they". This, these, that, and those are determiners or pronouns. "These stories are good" --> "They are good."
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jun 3 at 13:43
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    I agree that the subject pronouns are more natural here, but I cannot think of any reason why the demonstrative could not be used.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jun 3 at 13:47
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    @TimR The "be that as it may" is informal for which age group? Over 60s?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jun 3 at 15:09
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You're not referring to any stories in particular (newsworthy is a very general category) so there's not much contextual justification for these, which has a singling-out function.

The choice of pronoun there doesn't hinge on BE.

The news industry should follow the example of the tabloids and run salacious, fallacious, contumaceous, and utterly bodacious stories, as these types of story, far more than public-interest and human-interest stories, are apt to ensure the largest readership.

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