I agree, and think this ties into my pet peeve, if I may stroke it for a bit; The fact that science is so isolated from the outside world, that the only way the average person can access it is through pop culture interpretations. Pop culture science needs to be held to a higher standard if we won't fund good science communicators. We've left it to 'market forces' to fill the gap, and they've decided the most cost-effective way of doing that is stuffing it with garbage and slapping a pretty veneer on it.

People go "yeah, but you can read the studies online", but that ignores that 1) paywalls are a problem and 2) even if you don't run into a paywall, you need the education to understand what you're reading. The average american can barely read common english and is exhausted from work, expecting quality self-education to be the standard is a fool's errand.