What level of "evidence" would you accept? You reference science publishing as the gold standard, but why not require the standards of the criminal justice system? Indeed, why does science get away with a lesser standard?
Each professions has the standard it deems optimal within the trade-offs of risks, costs, etc. Those obviously differ: holding journalism to the standards of a criminal trial would essentially make it impossible.
That's especially true if you require to personally inspect all the evidence. Because if you don't trust a journalist, why trust any other person?
Say the story is "Senator used campaign funds for vacation". The reporter sees bank statements to that effect.
Are (photos of) bank statements "evidence"? Because they aren't signed. And even if they were, the photo could easily be faked. You wouldn't even have a specimen to compare signatures. In a trial, they'd get someone from the bank as a witness. But you don't accept just the journalist's assurance that any quote is accurate. So... Should the guy from the bank stop by at your place?
In fact, I can't think of any evidence you can transmit over http that wouldn't just be attacked as "fake" by those motivated to believe that. Case in point: birth certificates.
Meanwhile, there is like no evidence of respected news organisations making up facts. The whole narrative of these supposed failures of "mainstream media" is essentially fiction[0].
Journalism also doesn't work like science publishing in that it relies less on synthesis of previously reported facts. Scientists also don't offer any "evidence" for the meat of their papers, i. e. the stuff that's new. Almost by definition, citations can only cover old information.
So there would be footnotes referencing election results to support the claim that "President Trump" is an accurate representation of the guy's name and title. Plus a lot of footnotes like "as told to me by XX". That wouldn't help anybody. In fact, the source is typically named in every article using interviews, and even for anonymous sources that fact is disclosed. Those references are just embedded in the text, not referenced via footnotes.
So, is this a debate about formatting?
0: The example you're thinking of happened 18 years ago. You should come up with a more recent one, or you're liable to just proof that these events are extremely rare.