A couple of days ago, I heard a host and a reporter literally mock and make fun of RFK Jr. when they should have been trying to educate him and his supporters. Trust in institutions (including the news) has completely eroded, and instead of trying to build it back, they double down on what hasn't worked.
You're asking the impossible, such a person can't be reasoned with, and will certainly not listen to education from NPR. Mocking is the correct response. To me, your example exactly underlies the point that NPR didn't get more extreme, but the news they cover did.
The black death returns? I am only half joking. RFK jr believes in miasma theory of illness and thinks the germs theory is wrong. If all of us start to act like him, we will have millions of deaths. I vehemently dislike the "believe in science" ~crowd~ [e: I should say dogma], and on other issues I've said virtually the same thing as you've said in this comment.
But not here. If we truly can't agree that something as stupid as reviving the miasma theory of illness ought to be mocked, then we are lost.
I'm not saying you're doing this, but often when people say something is "virtue signalling" it's actually "critical thinking but with either base values or a conclusion I do not agree with"