Even the New York Times reported the attack as factual.

"Jussie Smollett, one of the stars of the Fox television show “Empire,” was attacked in Chicago early Tuesday morning by two people who yelled racial and homophobic slurs and wrapped a rope around his neck, *according to the police*, who said they were investigating the incident as “a possible hate crime.”

Literally in the first paragraph "according to police". At no point did NYT state that it definitely happened, that it was factual, or that they themselves had evidence of it occurring. They fact checked their sources (the police, Fox, Chicago-Sun Times) and that's all that can be expected of them.

So tired of hearing people whine that newspaper are misleading or outright fake when they're just telling you what their sources are saying. The police, FOX, and Smollett made statements to the press, Chicago-Sun-Times reported something - NYT has gathered this information and put it into an article to let you know the status of this story. How is any of that fake or misleading :S? It sounds to me like you don't actually read what is being said and just make your own assumptions based on what you hear on the TV or radio.