I would like to affirm your criticism, because the NYT, WaPo, et al have used such tactics (and others) in misleading ways, which is dishonest and subsequently

I would like to affirm your criticism, because the NYT, WaPo, et al have used such tactics (and others) in misleading ways, which is dishonest and subsequently could be viewed as "fake news". Sometimes such sources turned out not to be anyone of significance. In other cases, they turned out to be instances of hearsay, or even outdated and irrelevant to the context. It is shocking that a community such as Hacker News can assert demand for all manner of sources in the scientific and technical fields, but when it comes to news, they are more than willing to accept articles in which anonymous, unverifiable sources dominate. One could argue that they defer their trust to the integrity of the news source. And to a point, this is reasonable. But it is also reasonable to draw attention to its potential for abuse, especially in "technically true" but "functionally dishonest" ways. I just think that's hard for some people to acknowledge this potential point of failure/abuse.