News articles not checking sources is pretty standard. A few years ago I had a blog post about something regarding Apple picked up by the Hong Kong Free Press and then the New York Times. It ended up resulting in articles across hundreds of publications. The only publications that talked to me and Apple were the New York Times, the original Hong Kong Free Press and a CNN money reporter. Everyone else was just rewriting other posts.

The economics of the industry drive this behavior - most reporters have a quota of stories they have to write per day and there's no time or budget to even email sources let alone sit around waiting for a reply.

If you want to read more about this, I recommend the book "Trust me, I'm lying" by Ryan Holiday.