I don't really spend any time on CNN, and NY Times requires me to jump through hoops sometimes to read articles, as I do not have a subscription. I'll take Reuters and AP News at face value unless there's something spectacular that needs investigating (which would not be the norm.) So unless there's a claim such as that all across the nation, poll workers, election officials, appointed judges, etc. are all coordinating a well-concealed attack on the integrity of an election... well conspiracy theories need considerable evidence. That is, I mean, they need evidence that is clear, falsifiable, verifiable. Then I have to dig deeper.

I also trust peers with a similar threshold. If none of my intelligent friends and family members with a history of digging deeply into fantastic claims believe the current fantastic claim, I don't tend to feel the need to do such digging myself. If one of them was suddenly making a grandiose claim, I would sit up and notice and have to investigate further.

I don't see any news source as having blanket credibility. In a wider context, I feel like the cycle of building and then strip mining a brand has been accelerated. As soon as there is credibility and trust, it's exploited. But also, I don't see all the different people who write for an organization as having much if anything in common. My favorite general news source at the moment is Bloomberg, but I remember one or more people who used to bring up a particular article as evidence Bloomberg was not to be trusted.

I choose things to read based on my perception of their average reliability, but I don't assume that something is true because it comes from a good source. If I did, how could I know the source was good in the first place? The causality goes from good articles -> good source, not the other way around.

I just don't think you can give anyone any benefit of the doubt. If you're not forming your opinions bottom-up, you risk getting drawn into a divergent reality like so many people these days.

I'm also reminded of how some people on HN like to mention the "Gell-Mann Amnesia effect". You can't expect that smart people automatically know about any random thing, if it doesn't impact their life whether they are right or wrong.