It seems like this is just an instance of a more general pattern observable in newspaper and TV coverage of a lot of things: given a lack of other sources of in

It seems like this is just an instance of a more general pattern observable in newspaper and TV coverage of a lot of things: given a lack of other sources of information (because of language barriers and lack of free press in this case) and widespread lack of skepticism when it comes to some things (here related to longstanding political issues, propaganda, etc.), journalists will embrace any available source of information without due care. They need the business, and verifying would require actual effort, possibly even investigation. At least I suppose that's how it goes. That's why I trust very little of what is written about, e.g., North Korea: it doesn't mean that everything that sucks and supposedly happened there is true just because the system there indeed sucks. I think everybody is maybe predisposed to believe whatever they read about a topic they don't know about themselves as long as it fits in their worldview, so journalists get a free pass doing less checking than Wikipedia editors as long as the "news" is believable.