I would say that the ‘news fell for it’ is a naive statement. I would be the news doesn’t care if it is a lie or not. Most people won’t find out it is a lie and the news sure as hell wont make much effort to redact the story. Even those that find out its a lie will still have it in the back of their mind that things like this occur often.
Secondly, despite us Americans having incredible access to the internet.... I still see tons of unbelievable old fables and lies still being repeated as truth. Humans, are in fact, incredible idiots.