I agree. This error has a pretty happy ending, but I think more political and ideological diversity in academia and journalism would help to spot these errors sooner and improve the overall quality of science and science journalism. In particular, in this case, a progressive research firm was trusted by academics who were trusted by journalists. Mistakes will happen regardless, but I wonder if a more skeptical eye somewhere in the pipeline would have caught this error sooner. Fortunately, there are bipartisan organizations like [Heterodox Academy][0] which are working to correct this.
[0]: https://heterodoxacademy.org