Genuinely a laugh-out-loud take on mainstream science reporting.

Why aim to improve when we can just keep making the same old mistakes?

I misread it as saying the news always does it this way, which was clearly not what they meant.

I took it as saying "they usually jump in too early, so this is a refreshing change of pace."

Oh yes, you’re right, I think I read it too quickly.

I think it's more likely that the bulk of folks don't fully comprehend why this would be so important. I would imagine alot of reporters look at the things they could write about and the choices are politics, war, polarizing news, or nerds nerding hard trying to prove other nerds right or wrong, and it just doesn't make the cut.

No...that's not the case here, to wit, we can observe writers from these publications discussing it casually.

This plus vacation time in the Northern hemisphere - that one science reporter per large news org who actually understands the importance is AFK.

Newspapers don't work like that. The same reporter isn't responsible for politics, war, and science—they specialize, and a dedicated science reporter is going to be at least as savvy as a random commenter on HN.

They may want to cover it and just have a hard time explaining it to their editor, but I think "we can afford to wait until a peer reviewed paper comes out" is more likely.

Right. There's nothing to write about (yet!), but their science reporter is scrolling science twitter harder than we are. The movie can come later.

Wait wait wait... Are eggs healthy again?

Though that's like the opposite of how most media operate.

That hasn't stopped them in the past...

True, but that hasn't stopped MSM in the past

Because the media is of course known for studying topics in high detail to make sure they don't report the wrong thing and not for rushing half written hearsay out the door before the competitors do.