Comment Re:High journalistic Standards (Score 1) 391
This is more like a journalist asking a street bum for information. Sure, you put the blame on the bum for lying, but most people would blame the reporter for asking a bum in the first place, because street bums aren't known for being reliable sources of information.
Also, circular reporting is easier in today's environment. What likely happened is that The Guardian decided to run the story based only on Wikipedia, and after that happened, all the other papers just assumed that The Guardian had done proper fact-checking, and so just copied what The Guardian said. Back then, there were printing press delays, and a newspaper on one side of the globe couldn't just instantly copy-n-paste what a newspaper on the other side of the globe said.