In my country we have an old saying "If the papers say that your sister is a whore, good luck proving you don't even have a sister!"
It's just the nature of the beast these days. With the revenue slowly disappearing, journalists have to provide cheaper articles. That's why almost every news article is a recycled press release or, like this case, poorly researched.
It's quite sad IMHO; if news is delivered online, there will be a massive dilution of revenue. There may never again be enough money in journalism to do extensively researched articles. Short of people doing it out of the good of their own hearts. Time will tell I guess.
Also, a journalist did not have to avoid Wikipedia to do a better job, they just had to use to the history feature and see the pre-death entry.