I think that the credibility of online news depends entirely on who's publishing the news article.
I have come across many articles that swear up and down that something happened a certain way and a certain person is to blame.
After I conduct a little more research into the subject by looking up different sources of the story, I find that most of the time, the article i originally read either blew it way out of proportion or completely made up some facts about the story; for example, I once read an article about a Youtuber, who generally covered the history of Video Game records, under the threat of legal action because he made a video that provided very convincing proof that a world record held by Billy Mitchel was faked. The thing about Billy Mitchel though was that he was a very wealthy man and had been known to take legal actions against people who he thought were trying to insult him or discredit his work.
(he sued Cartoon Network because he thought an episode of Regular Show was making fun of him because a character in the show, who cheated in games, looked very similar to him)
After the Youtuber made the video, he went to a convention that Billy was in and recorded a conversation that he had with Billy discussing the alleged fake record, shortly there after, A video game website (that Billy had a connection with) posted an article slandering the Youtuber, claming that he was sneaking around the convention and when he conversed with Billy, didnt tell him that he was recording the conversation.
After this article was posted, it was immediately proven that the claims the article made were completely false by people who were attending the convention.
which leads me to the point of this discussion.
The website responsible for posting the article that slandered the Youtuber was a generally well liked news site for video game records; however, since Billy Mitchel had connections to the website, they did everything in their power to slander the Youtuber, even going as far to make up facts about their meeting to make the Youtuber seem like a criminal.
I think that this can apply to most things that are covered by all news sources, If it doesnt line up with their over all agenda or the subject isnt liked by someone with lots of connections, they could very easily falsify the story to paint a picture about someone they dont like or an organization they dont agree with as being dishonest or incredibly despicable.
which is why before I form an opinion about a news article, I like to make sure that I cross check the facts covered in the article by going to many different news sites to see if they all line up.
