In general, I think journalists do always at least try to get both sides, and responses to any criticism, and would keep going back and forth. (If they don't, i

In general, I think journalists do always at least try to get both sides, and responses to any criticism, and would keep going back and forth. (If they don't, it's a basic ethical failure.) And especially for technical articles, it's fairly common to send maybe a bullet list of all the points you're using from what they told you. The reason sending drafts around is considered bad journalistic practice comes from political and commercial interests. People will object to minutiae in your article not because it's wrong, but because it's inconvenient for them, including blocking publication etc. (Again, less relevant for science, but the most important pieces of journalism can be a battle to get published.) (A further point is that there do exist wiki-style summaries, more full and precise discussions, etc. But it's the pop media-style articles that have so much more reach, partly because of the often-erring attempts to simplify and make readable.)