A great example of why people don't trust journalists anymore. They don't even perform a basic amount of fact checking before publishing.
I question the ethics and standards of the New York Times at least a little at this point so it's not like great journalism is common.
Generally there is a chain of trust in news publishing that goes nowhere and there's nothing we can do about it, as more often than not, someone credible repeats the hearsay nonsense down the line, at which point they count as a primary source.
So much of news publishing I would describe as not even wrong.
Newspapers got the bulk of their funding from advertising back then, just as they do now.
There are bad journalists (if they can be called journalists at all) and good journalists. At this point in history, our only hope lies with diligent reporters from reputable publishers.
They don't.