For instance, when the J&J clot "issue" hit the news cycle, vaccinations across the board went down, even for vaccines other than J&J. These people aren't looking at any kind of details or data and getting confused by them, they're just making a decision based on word-of-mouth sentiment from their social/media circles. They would have never been confused by details in the article, because they never read it.

The data should be publicly available, but that doesn’t mean it belongs in an article for general consumption.

If a more specialized publication wants to offer a more explanatory story, fine.

But I don’t think that’s what people are looking for from a regular newspapers.

Knowing a vaccine is considered by experts to be effective is sufficient. The exact rates of reinfection aren’t important and can be confusing.

Sufficient to whom? Experts often disagree and if they disagree, I want to know where and why and what the data is. Just because I am not expert on the topic does not mean I can't make judgements on incomplete information.

You are seriously underestimating people that may want to read mainstream sources, as if they need to be told what to think.

True, MSM unfortunately regularly does that instead of impartial reporting, but how could anyone be a proponent that all MSM articles being like this is desirable for informed society. The increased focus on narrative pushing from MSM is the source of distrust in MSM and the reason why people turn to alternative sources.

That’s not always a good thing. Simply because something is factually true and increases audience engagement doesn’t mean it’s relevant or responsible to include.

For example, COVID had a fatality rate of 2%. That’s a fact. It also will increase engagement amount certain media markets.

But that’s also very misleading. 2% of the world is 140 million people.

The fact that it’s piece of “true data” that increases audience engagement doesn’t mean it belongs in mainstream articles.

Most editors want to maintain high standards, and that means excluding irrelevant data.

This position is absolutist and a mark of a totalitarian thinking and a large portion of population does not share it.

For most people, individual people freedoms matter too and in democracy, these freedoms are stronger than the institutional desideratum to vaccinate as many people as technically possible. What is best for the whole country isn't always best for the individual living there.

https://www.history.com/.amp/news/smallpox-george-washington...