[marcus_holmes]

Journalism gets paid for people reading/viewing, not for telling the truth. Telling an interesting story is more important than getting the facts right (from a financial perspective).

There is literally nothing (except defamation/libel laws, which is why all the characters are invented) that says any story presented as true by a publisher has to actually be true. There is no penalty for lying, or presenting a fictional story as true.

Any expectation that anything a publisher produces is even vaguely related to actual events is based on a now-outdated set of principles in journalism that are no longer followed.