Also, there is the effect of a lie oft repeated becoming the truth - the times I've seen small outlets writing nonsense, and having it picked up by progressivel

Also, there is the effect of a lie oft repeated becoming the truth - the times I've seen small outlets writing nonsense, and having it picked up by progressively bigger papers citing the smaller ones as credible sources is too much to count. Generally there is a chain of trust in news publishing that goes nowhere and there's nothing we can do about it, as more often than not, someone credible repeats the hearsay nonsense down the line, at which point they count as a primary source. So much of news publishing I would describe as not even wrong.