WP:Burden states in part, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." As I said above, the material's inability to be verified is not the only issue. It is also irrelevant to the article. It is unencyclopedic as it confers no facts or information. It is only a blurb which theoretically promises that information has been generated by someone who does not meet academic notability guidelines. While the newspaper would be a valid source for the individual who wrote the paper (presuming it exists) the paper itself is not a valid academic source for this article's topic if it was not written by someone who could be considered an expert in the field. I also cite the non-sequitur option in Argument_from_authority as it is not necessarily true that these past editors you reference considered the verifiability or appropriateness of the information, nor is their lack of removal of the material an implicit endorsement of its content.