We live in sad times when you can only be sure of something if you have first-hand knowledge of it or spend a lot of time researching it. Or maybe it's just a normal state of affairs for the Middle Ages.
I have long accepted the need to be agnostic when it comes to coverage of foreign affairs, for example. Like, the reporting on my original homeland is almost invariably colonial in tone and very inaccurate, so I just assume that reporting on other places is probably as bad.