I don't recognize fraud as a category of crime related to a news story.

The rest of the world does.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/29/felony...

I have no idea what point you're trying to make with that link.

That fraud committed under cover of "news", "journalism", or other forms of reporting, remains fraud.

Here committed by a "citizen journalist", interpreting the term very broadly.

There's the Infowars / Alex (nutjob) Jones / Pizzagate case as well, where, under threat of a lawsuit, Jones has tried to walk back earlier reporting.

(There's another Alex S. Jones, a serious journalist, associated with the Shorenstein Center. Who I strongly suspect curses his, or Nutjob's, parents, on a fairly regular basis. One of the rather more pronounced, ironic, and tragic cases of identity confusion.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(journalist)

You're mixing apples and oranges here. There's a difference between committing fraud to get a true story and printing something the government decides isn't true.