Yes I agree completely. The recent TWiV has some great discussion on this between this new variant and that ridiculous "sars-cov-2 is reverse transcribing into the human genome" preprint. The scientific publication process and science journalism has always been somewhat broken it just rarely had serious consequences, now it's another broken system the pandemic is shining a light on.
I think the media has a real problem with reporting uncertainty. What's interesting is that there was a collective effort not to jump to conclusions and be careful when reporting on the presidential election. They showed they're capable of restraint when they think it's warranted, but with the pandemic they can't help but reach for the "Because of [unproven report] [consequence] is very likely" formula.
I think the media has a real problem with reporting uncertainty. What's interesting is that there was a collective effort not to jump to conclusions and be careful when reporting on the presidential election. They showed they're capable of restraint when they think it's warranted, but with the pandemic they can't help but reach for the "Because of [unproven report] [consequence] is very likely" formula.