You gave an example of TMZ sourcing photos from randos, but they're likely not the target customer for this tech. If they cared about integrity they wouldn't be reporting celebrity gossip.

For news companies posting syndicated images, then those come from a cadre of photographers who are most likely to own the newest most expensive cameras. Surely it's not inconceivable that as this tech rolls out more, Agence-France-Presse, Getty, or AP could require all photos submitted to them to have this metadata, thus passing the benefits along to any news agency using their images.

If you're talking about photo sources taken from everyday people, then yes: They won't have this technology in the short term, maybe not ever. Then again, I don't get my news from TMZ.

I think blockchain is dumb because it fails to achieve its stated goals while also harming society. I think this is a system with marginal use case and minimal licensing overhead to integrate into future cameras, so overall my take is "not dumb" and "probably useful".