[drgath]

In 1835, the New York Sun (a serious newspaper [0], 1833-1855) published some articles [1] describing alien civilizations on the moon that can be seen through a new telescope in South Africa.

From Wired,

> The Sun, ever the champion of the public good, claimed, no joke, that it was actually all a public service… to get the nation to stop worrying so much for a second about that whole slavery thing.

So, there are good journalists, bad journalists, "journalists" who aren't even journalists, and they've all existed since the birth of the printing press.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_%28New_York%29

[1] http://www.wired.com/2014/12/fantastically-wrong-thomas-dick...