Gatekeepers

Journalists have various possible functions, but one is, presumably, having some inside knowledge about who is or isn't a bullshitter and adjusting their coverage accordingly. True for politicians and true for the titans of industry. As an example, after years and years of bullshit, Elon still mostly operates under a "print first, verify (maybe) later" coverage rule.  Even after this!

Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017

You don't have to know much about anything to understand this was bullshit, and that the person writing it was a bullshitter, right away. And no there wasn't any skepticism at the time.