Why do you disagree with the evidence presented by the intercept? It seems to me that there was an intent to misinform the public, either by multiple sources deliberately feeding the wrong information to multiple news agencies or the news agencies misrepresented how many independent sources had verified the information.
Multiple sources make it unlikely it was "mistake". It was almost certainly disinformation. The "mistake" was running with unverified information.
Consistently making "mistakes" that go in one direction indicates lack of integrity.