More often reporters provide information with which readers can make their own assessments. A lot of information in a newspaper necessarily comes not from written sources but from what people say. And of course people do not invariably tell the complete, selfless, unvarnished truth to reporters. With these stories, deadlines come first, so verification may be incomplete, but if so that needs to be clearly pointed out to the reader. Verification is perhaps too grand a word for reporting.
Scientists can verify something in tedious laboratory experiments.