Author of the post on Medium is trying to get some fame, using first approach from your list. We can't be specialists in all fields, and journalists can't - it's just one case where knowledge of the Internet helped some guy to find some info. "News should be checked by experts" would be good title, "don't trust nobody, check everything" is absurd title.
Sure, we can't all be specialists in all fields, but in this day and age, if your job is primarily to investigate, examine and digest facts, not being able to use the internet at the level that is presented in the article is going to be holding you back.
The quoted articles all went out of their way to ask the question without bothering to answer it. What happened? Did the journalists not think it was an important enough question to investigate (and if so, why even include the question)? Had they spent an hour or two they could have figured this out or found someone who could help them out with it.
