Not strictly true: it only needs to matter not enough at the time. But, yes, arguably a fair amount of publications are largely irrelevant beyond a few people.
Societies fund many things for many reasons, not sure science is worth singling out here.
I don't mind the funding, but inclusion in a journal dresses it up with the blessing of a Scientific Result if the news ever cite it.
We could have a separate kind of journal for not-yet-reproduced results, and somehow ensure that the prestige is zero (or equivalent to just posting the study on a blog).
We could, but I doubt it would stop the news from picking stuff up. They often go with press releases anyway, not a journal citation. You would need incentives on the news side then to stop that.
Societies fund many things for many reasons, not sure science is worth singling out here.