I remember when Liberals rightly criticized Fox for reporting "Now, I'm not saying this is what happened, but consider <salacious unconfirmed attack on the integrity of [Democrat politician]>.

The Steele dossier was junk to anyone who bothered to think about it as evidenced that Buzzfeed published after every other media institution passed on it.

The honest way for those media that passed over the dossier to report the Steele dossier was: "The Steele dossier, which we passed over because we think it is junk, claims that Trump [...]"

This was not an honest mistake. I know many people who loathed Trump in '16, crying when he won, who voted for him in '20 because of this.