Scientific papers cannot make claims without either citing sources to back up those claims, or providing the observational or experimental data themselves to back up the claims. When it’s functioning properly, the strength, flexibility and reliability of the scientific process is owed to this chain of credence. As experiments are reproduced or called into question, linked chains of veracity are either buttressed or reconsidered.
Journalism doesn’t work like this. A newspaper’s sole source of credibility is its monolithic reputation. Journalists don’t cite sources for the stories they write. They are trusted insofar as the reputation of the institution they represent is on the line. That’s it.
This begs the question: if there is no relatively objective “process of journalistic epistemology”, how is the status of that reputation judged, and by whom, with what supporting evidence? That is to say, how is an outside observer expected to be able to discern whether an institution is generally trustworthy, without being told so by a conglomeration of other institutions (and there is an infinite regress here). Furthermore, without a standard process by which veracity is perpetually buttressed (as by, say, diligent citations and openness about process for the sake of reproducability), how could a reader judge whether or not this time they’re correct (or being honest)?
This problem seems to be amplified when various reputation-based institutions rely on and support one-another. Cynically: once the network is large and strong enough, it no longer needs to prove itself with open-palmed veracity; it can merely assert its wide-reaching influence to create an environment of support. (these sources say that source is good. we obviously can’t all be lying, our side is the force for good and you wouldn’t want to fall outside of it, etc etc)
Also, potemkin-citation are only possible from “reputable” sources.
Related: journalism is co-opting and overruling the scientific process with “Fact Checking” (Media “Fact Checking” Isn’t Science). having seen that they couldn’t compete with actual truth-seeking, they developed a parallel strategy