Of course most of the time media sources don't invent stuff like this - but tell me, without the widespread publicity, would anyone even hear about this guy?
Now one can say that it's only fringe outlets that go anti-vaxx nowadays. But mainstream sources do exactly the same type of reporting - omitting or not doing the math, blowing things out of proportion by literal orders of magnitude, etc. - when it comes to GMOs, or e-cigs, or immigrants, or terrorists, etc. The feedback loop between readers and publishers can turn just about absolutely anything into a nation-wide scandal.
So that's a different claim.
When he first appeared he was credible - he got published in a peer reviewed respectable journal after all, and he was actively trying to con people.
Once his paper had been debunked, well, yes you're right there. There's no excuse to keep pushing his theory once we know he's falsified his data, taken samples illegally from people without their permission, etc.
Those are pretty different objections. Only one of them detracts from the theory.
I've read that we have pretty good data on how long a human can float in water of various temperatures before tiring and drowning, because the Nazis systematically drowned Jews in water of various temperatures to get the data.
I also read that relevant bits of this data are posted near beaches with cold water as a public safety measure. So far so good.
...and then of course, that there was a movement to take those signs down because the source of the data is morally objectionable. Full credit for moral purity to the let's-take-down-the-drowning-warnings people. In their own small way, they are dedicated to making the world just that much slightly worse than it was.
US police brutality is so routine that it mostly goes un-reported, or gets minor attention on very local news media. That's changing now. Part of the problem is that US police don't even count how many people they shoot and kill.
I'd argue that the myth of "Vaccines causing autism" was not just manufactured by media, it was manufactured by a crook doctor who i) had developed his own single dose measles vaccine and needed people to stop using MMR and ii) was paid by lawyers to find a link to autism.