OK. In this particular case I'd be very, very surprised if malice played any role. And assuming mistakes are malicious by default is more wrong than than the opposite, IMHO.
Is it more the nature of the mistake or the trustworthyness of the Reuters organization that influences your opinion (or something else)?
I'm not saying this wasn't a mistake, but knowledge of things like "Operation Mockingbird" do carry weight with me. Do you know about this? It's crazy... (There's very much out there to read on this but here's the summary.)
"According to Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA), in the 1950s, "some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts". Wisner was able to constrain newspapers from reporting about certain events, including the CIA plots to overthrow the governments of Iran (see: Operation Ajax) and Guatemala (see: Operation PBSUCCESS)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
If you're thinking that the mistake is such a small transgression that - "who would care?" Well...little tiny almost imperceivable things do matter, particularly to propagandists and to Pavlov's dog :) (Again - not saying that "I know" anything, but a non-infinitesimal possibility is definite IMO :)
