> Would you be fine if someone described the troubles in Northern Ireland as ethnic tension

Why not? It's a lot more accurate than the usual description of "Protestants and Catholics" while still being simple and clear.

> Why not?

Because it wasn’t purely ethnic in nature with Protestants and Catholics on both sides of the conflict. Trying to summarize it as ethic conflict was therefore also also incorrect. Which why using ethic tensions is so often misleading, it seems appropriate in many situations when it really isn’t.

Yep, that's the counter argument right there. Sometimes it's better to be vaguely accurate than precisely missing much of the point.

Vaguely accurate is just another way of saying wrong.

No, "vaguely accurate" is a way of avoiding labels which are more precise and wrong. It's better to describe a disputed large quantity with the vague but accurate label of "millions" than choose a random scholar of unknown quality's estimate to 3 s.f as the correct figure.

It's better to summarise the Troubles in Northern Ireland vaguely accurately as "ethnic tensions" than precisely wrongly as a religious war between two schools of Christianity.

Saying gas is about 4$ right now is vaguely accurate, of course it’s also wrong. Consider the phrase “not even vaguely accurate” means it’s not just wrong it’s very wrong.

Being vaguely accurate on a history test may give partial credit, but the news should to be held to a higher standard.