When stories break about the results of formal investigations, attribution is a critical piece of the reporting.
Why? Because in most every instance of potential wrongdoing, a reporter rarely is there to witness anything. It's police said this, prosecutors said that, the report said such and such, witnesses said so and so. Reporters don't always have the luxury of reporting what happened so much as what people say happened.
Whether readers want to believe or disbelieve a source is entirely up to them. Journalists are in the same boat. They report the various details, point out where the details conflict and leave it to the reader's judgment to decide what to think.
And so it is in this space we're sometimes left with lots of "ifs" -- as in, if this detail is true, then here's how we react to it.
