The journalist has more attention to spare, though, because extracting meaning from opaque text is, in large part, their job—the thing they're putting intention

The journalist has more attention to spare, though, because extracting meaning from opaque text is, in large part, their job—the thing they're putting intentional focus and man-hours into; rather than something they're doing half-heartedly + absent-mindedly + in fits-and-starts as procrastination from their job. Certainly, as a dabbler in a lot of scientific fields, I might make fewer errors in comprehension than a typical journalist "on the science beat" who doesn't actually get much immersion in science. But, as someone who comes across this journal paper while scrolling HN on the bus and knows I get off at the next stop, I more-likely-than-not just won't pick up / comprehend any useful facts from reading the scientific abstract, before I get up and forget about the open tab, never coming back to it again. Whereas skimming a few paragraphs of an editorialized version of the paper, might be enough to at least let me absorb a nonzero amount of information, in that same distracted two minutes. Even if I don't absorb a precisely-correct + objective reiteration of the conclusion, then at least I might learn what the novel research method was, to the point that it piques my curiosity to go back and learn more later!