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This is a good question.

I would like to echo that sentiment.

While the Koch brothers have had an aggressive political agenda for some time, applying their billions of dollars to influence a radical agenda onto US politics Dark Money, by Jane Mayer ...

The bigger issue here is:

• Do you trust the site?
  
• Do you trust the author?
  
• Do you trust the content?
  
• Do you trust the OP? reddit-user-analyser
  
  Be skeptical.
  
  Some of us are misanthropes, some of us are a bit kooky, some of us might actually be reasonable normal human beings; but some among us are bad actors which have commercial, corporate or political agendas. some of us are bots, trolls, manipulators.
  
  Again, this is a good question.

This is a good read: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/09/kremlin-hall-of-mirrors-military-information-psychology

And he adapted his various essays into a book:

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

Found it on Amazon for anyone who prefers book form. https://www.amazon.com/Hostile-Social-Manipulation-Realities-Emerging/dp/1977402607

Reznor did the musical score for the recent Ken Burns series on Vietnam. Not that you were asking.

Maybe we need to define our terms here. When I say "mainstream media" that means anything that has a huge readership, exception being local news outlets which counts as such. Your Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, etc. are all mainstream news. Legacy stuff like TV news and newspapers count here. "Alternative media" in my usage here is the opposite of that. Can include reputable stuff like opinion mags with a long pedigree like Commentary, specialist blogs from subject matter experts, new media stuff like Buzzfeed or Medium, Jimmy Joe's Conspiracy Tumblr About Da JOOOZ, etc. These labels shouldn't be seen as statements of the specific medium's quality.

To say that one type is more or less vulnerable than another is naive. Notionally an established media company should be more accountable but they're staffed with human beings subject to biases and agendas like anyone else. US legacy media has failed repeatedly in the past to maintain its objectivity. Even if they don't originate active measures they've definitely wound up laundering them due to confirmation bias. A few more examples:

-Walter Duranty's whitewashing of Stalin's USSR and denial of famine conditions in the Ukraine in the NY Times.

-Walter Cronkite's declaration that the Vietnam War had become a stalemate after the Tet Offensive, even though Vietnamese Communist forces had actually been decimated in the fighting.

-Sydney Schamberg writing in the NY Times that the Khmer Rouge victory in Cambodia meant "for most, a better life".

-The AP's 1999 expose about an American massacre of Korean civilians in the Korean War based on "recently declassified (in the '70s)" documents. This article was originally floated by a Korean Leftist in the AP (shadiest dudes in the world) and eventually fell apart when it was revealed that the three key American witnesses were never even there. Pulitzer Prizes were won regardless.

https://www.amazon.com/No-Gun-Ri-Military-Incident/dp/0811717631

-Reporting on hate crime hoaxes and the reaction to them.

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Now for the nuts and bolts.

Looking for sources regarding Bilal Hussein, I came upon a lot of dead links from when I was first studying the case about ten years ago. All I've been able to find is commentary by Michelle Malkin and I'm sure you're not interested in reading that.

What I know about the case is this. Hussein was hired as a stringer by AP and took a lot of photos in Fallujah during the big battles there. He had a weird tendency of always being in the right place at the right time to get great shots of insurgents executing election workers or attacking US troops or even just looking badass and noble. This suggested that he was operating on their behalf since the Iraqi insurgency wouldn't allow anyone to do anything in their territory if they didn't want them to. At some point he was found by Marines in a house with two other known insurgents and with bomb parts. He was then detained because again, you don't hang out with guys like that unless they want you with them. And a normal Iraqi wouldn't want to be around them because they were so scary. At some point he was remanded into Iraqi custody and eventually released by then as part of an amnesty, not because he was cleared of wrongdoing. This didn't stop the AP and other advocacy groups from acting like he was. He even won an award. The link you shared seems to be an example of that.

Here are some other articles about insurgent propaganda campaigns and other shady stringers for your edification:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500659.html?noredirect=on

https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2005/12/disinformation_opera.php

https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/04/a_street_corner_in_r.php

https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/-/5-414382/?page=1&fvx=1 (this is a lost Bill Roggio article preserved on a gun forum).

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/08/iraq.main/

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Because I care too much, here's an entire category on a blog about all the AP's shenanigans in Pyongyang. The blogger is a lawyer who helped write two major pieces of legislation regarding North Korean sanctions and human rights and was cited numerous times by mainstream sources. https://freekorea.us/category/ap-watch/ . Also, the link you posted is just NK New's homepage.

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EDIT: Let's also not forget the widespread admiration and credulity for Wikileaks for its actions during the Iraq War.