News is what your editor says it is unless the publisher says it isn’t.
I read about something similar in David Brinkley’s memoir book. When he was a young reporter, he was supposed to cover some event, but couldn’t get there in person for some reason. So he wrote up a story using general background information about the event and the organization. I think this is common practice in the news business, to “fill in the gaps” so to speak, when they lack the specifics they are looking for. And it’s nothing new.