That story came from a leaked report written by a well-respected former intelligence officer. The article does not state them as fact, instead remarks on the source of the unverified information, and gives background on Russian blackmail intelligence operations.
That's not fake news. And the whole reason anyone was writing about it was because Buzzfeed published the memo - other news organisations had a copy of it for months but didn't publish, specifically because they couldn't verify the information.
Like I said, the report was compiled by a respected former intelligence officer. It hasn't been possible to verify all the claims (as secret operations often aren't, which is why these supposedly untrustworthy media outlets didn't publish it) but that means it is unverified, not that it is completely fabricated.
