Earlier this week in the US, a story (about a covid related issue) was repeated broadly after a Rolling Stone reporter got a "scoop" that turned out to be completely false, by a person who was lying about credentials and incidents in a hospital.
By the time the hospital had written an official statement, dozens of news sources had already repeated the "fake news" and none of them, NOT ONE, had bothered to phone up the hospital system and ask some basic questions! If they had, they'd have found out it was a hoax.
In this case, we see reality treated as a hoax, and women told they're imagining things or even creating some kind of false flag to advance a radical cause, and instead it turns out to be the most common, pathetic kind of serial flasher doing something flashers have done since forever.
In both these situations, real journalism, the kind that comes from actually cross-checking your facts from multiple sources to see whether they're genuine, would have fixed the story right up and made sure no embarrassing retractions needed to be printed. As it is, though, most people will remember the original story and few people remember a retraction.