The Guardian may have shown up a whisper pretending to be pushing a "will no one think of the children?" Angle. Demanding how whisper will help when used as a tool of child abusers and so on. With that they got their info and decided which angle to actually pursue.

Reporting secret information that people don't want you to know that may affect decisions you might make that have a pretty strong affect on your life. That's really, really good reporting. If it really did turn out to be fabrication that would be awful, but it seems unlikely at this point. Time will tell.