From my perspective, its a novel little gaming computer with a neat industrial design and an Atari license. I don't see any reason the tech news shouldn't cover it unless they are inundated with higher interest news for the day.
It's a narrative that has played enough times that it warrants at a minimum skepticism.
Like it or not when you do writeups based solely on the press release it lends credibility to the project. Personally I think a little diligence and curation would go a long way. Most these projects end up being funded when these sites all run to be first to publish... nobody actually spends time investigating whether the people involved have track record or whether claims are even reasonable... all of a sudden overnight it's funded... that sucks.
Viability and credibility should not be confused.
Under your definition if I buy the Coleco name tomorrow and send a press release with a high res image of a console then it's perfectly fine for news sites to just republish my press release without knowing who I am, what I have done or whether what I have claimed is true. This by the way is the primary means of funding on crowdfunding sites... I just disagree with you.
1. https://atari.com/news/atari-reveals-more-details-about-atar...
So this company that bought up a failing and abused brand has produced many other types of consumer devices and has a track record of delivering quality products to people based on promise alone such as the kickstarter model...
That's what you are saying?
Here's a news article: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/atari-box-console-2017-specs
This is the value proposition in my opinion, that makes it newsworthy.