Certainly you could also just trust the photographer, but a chain of trust might be preferable to the general viewer (eg. I don't necessarily trust Photographer X, but I trust The Guardian and if The Guardian trusts this photo taken by Photographer X to be authentic, then I trust this image to be authentic).
Edit: I read more about the CAI and C2PA[1] and I think it would be sufficient for provenance and origin purposes, so what is missing is the trust network. It's likely going to a while for media outlets to establish trust networks and phase out the old, untrusted ways. There's definitely going to be room for both and I imagine outlets will start using terms like "we have received images from multiple sources, however their authenticity has not be verified by our editors".
[1] https://c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/1.3/specs/C2P...