While I think journalism has a lot of issues this is not one of them. How a layman journalist could parse a scientific paper and compress it for a wide audience

While I think journalism has a lot of issues this is not one of them. How a layman journalist could parse a scientific paper and compress it for a wide audience without giving some false impressions I can not imagine. "The devil is in the details" in a inescapable law. For reporting on science the trouble is with the readers, not the papers. People want to draw conclusions applicable to their lives, or at least for having the upper hand in an argument. These studies are narrow in scope by necessity and are observations rather than predictions or prescriptions. The reality is that most studies like this can not be used as self improvement guides. Not the ones about achieving mastery in your field, not the ones about mental health, nutrition, exercise and so on. But then why would people bother to read about them? The human mind is on the lookout for shortcuts, the elixir of eternal youth, happiness , love is as in high demand as it always has been. Hundreds of years ago these where presented as vials of exotic substances. Now we're rational and educated, we want the elixirs presented as science bits. So what's a journalist to do? He too has to pay for rent and food.