Majoo said in an email that the attribution of such an outrageous story to a small, unknown agency struck him as questionable behavior.

“I see this happen often in tabloids like the Post or Daily Mail or Yahoo or other news sites – references to foreign news services (often in the developing world) whose credibility we have no way of assessing,” he said. “It's just sort of an obvious signifier of the publication thinking that the story is too good to check, that it doesn't really matter if it's true because it's so strange.”

This might be a comforting argument. But the consequence is that real people – an Argentinian teacher, a Russian photo model – are having their lives distorted and paraded before the world. And it also blurs the line between truth and fiction in a way that undermines the integrity of the news media as a whole.

Indeed, the blame for the fact that CEN has been able to circulate such dubious stories does not rest with Michael Leidig alone: He was able to build his business because larger news organisations were so eager to buy what CEN had to sell, knowing that their readers would lap up these lurid tales of faraway people and places.

In that Press Gazette article, Leidig lamented what the internet had done to the economics of newsgathering. “There has never been a better time to be a journalist, if it’s your hobby,” he wrote. “If you hope to make a living out of it, then I can’t remember it being worse.”

He added: “With hundreds of thousands of new items a day, who can tell what is new anymore?”

Or, for that matter, what is real.

Additional reporting by Tanya Chen

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A few hours prior to the publication of this story, Press Gazette ran a story claiming that BuzzFeed News' investigation into CEN was an attempt to damage a business rival.

In a statement to Press Gazette, Michael Leidig said of the questions we put to CEN: "An internal review here quickly revealed little substance to [BuzzFeed's] claims. When properly analysed, all they had found was that on two occasions we had re-used archive pictures.

“Their repeated assertion that, simply because one of our quotes did not appear in local media, it must have been made up, suggests they don’t have any idea of the real potential to generate good news in the modern landscape. We regard it as an obligation to check where possible local media stories, and we do make calls to police, hospitals, and have alternative sources. We are not paid by our clients just to translate. We are paid to do journalism."

Before publishing this piece, BuzzFeed News approached the sites it believes to be CEN’s biggest customers, the Mirror, the Mail, and Metro, to share its concerns over CEN’s content and to investigate whether the dubious quotes and details had come from the news agency or from their own reporters.

A spokesperson for the Mail, whose parent company also owns Metro, said: “CEN is one of the multiple news agencies that MailOnline and Metro work with to provide stories that we haven’t commissioned ourselves. News organisations around the world all work with numerous reputable news agencies to supply stories that can be taken on trust because the agency has researched, sourced and edited the story.

“Our agreement with each of these agencies requires the stories they provide to be accurate.

“If we independently discover this not to be the case we will adjust the story accordingly and advise the agency who is responsible for the story.

“We have not so far had any complaints about any of the stories provided, however we are reviewing their content with the agency concerned.”

The Mirror said:

“As BuzzFeed itself knows from personal experience, it is hard to verify every fact and detail in stories from other parts of the world, so we do rely on established news agencies, especially for offbeat stories like these. We do basic fact checking, with more detailed examination if the stories contain serious allegations.

“We are proud of being the intelligent tabloid so the last thing we want to do is publish content that is untrue. We take our relationship of trust with our readers extremely seriously and set ourselves high standards of accuracy. If it transpires that any content we have published is significantly accurate or misleading, our policy is to correct or remove it as soon as possible.

“We have asked CEN to investigate BuzzFeed’s allegations and we will be reviewing our processes in light of that information.”

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BuzzFeed News has, as mentioned in this piece, previously used images from CEN, or followed up reports that originated with the agency. It is now our policy not to do so.

The following is a list of all our pieces that have used CEN/Europics content as far as we are able to determine:

This Is What Happens When You Leave The Hot Tap Running All Winter

A Dog Gave Birth To Green Puppies In Spain

"Black Death" Plague Surfaces In China And Forces Government To Seal Off A Whole City

A Russian Guy Says His Justin Bieber Ringtone Saved Him From A Bear Attack

German Builders Say This Pavement Swastika Was An “Innocent Mistake”

A Man In China Apparently Ended Up Riddled With Tapeworm Parasites After Eating Too Much Sashimi

The Unluckiest Man In The World Set His College On Fire With A Fireworks Marriage Proposal

A University Student Died At A Sperm Bank After Donating For A Fourth Time In 10 Days

Boy Shocked By Electricity Says He Has Superpowers Like Magneto

Russian Footballer Hires Muzzled, Tie-Wearing Bear For Son’s Birthday Party

A list of those stories we have been unable to verify has been added to Emergent and we will update them if fresh information comes in. For more information on BuzzFeed News’ sourcing policy, see our Editorial Standards and Ethics Guide.