No matter how many terrible things you've heard about the mainstream press, you truly cannot appreciate how bad it really, really is until you have been reported on yourself. It is at least two orders of magnitude worse than you think it is from reading Reddit.
Very true.
As someone who has worked in the industry i can tell you that the process of creating news stories is remarkably similar to that of producing chicken nuggets -- although, probably not as sanitary.
I thought this may be of interest to the LW community. Jacob Barnett is a 12-year old male who taught himself all of high school math (algebra through calculus), has a currently scored math IQ of 170 (for what that's worth) and is currently on track to become a researcher of astrophysics. His current major news worthy claim-to-fame (aside from being really young): The Big Bang Theory is currently incorrect (I believe the article states he has something about a lack of carbon in the model), and he's planning to develop a new theory.
I haven't learned anything serious in physics, so I have nothing to note on his claim. I realize the news article cited puts him claim fairly generally, so I'll ask this: Can someone explain how elements are generally modeled to have formed from the big bang? And is there anything that it Jacob may be missing in the current literature?