A "good" (which is subjective) news site isn't guaranteed or prevented by the use of any particular CMS.

A quick Google search shows that many popular news sites are WordPress-powered, including BBC America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Quartz, TechCrunch, Time, and Variety. Many of these are considered good.

I didn't say good. I said decent. As for me I would avoid WordPress at all costs but the fact is it can be used to get the thing done tolerably well and there are just so many people who can operate it.