[moate]

He then goes about spending his entire article (and in fact, a whole ass book!: http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=8014010049221...) talking about the spider in question and why it's misunderstood by laymen. The man is an expert in his field lobbing a (valid) criticism about media representation of one specific matter.

[comesee]

Criticizing the media with proper rationale is fair, but he's going a step further. He's strongly implying they are doing this for the money. No need for him to imply that or even assign any motive to why the media is wrong on this topic. It suffices for him to say they are wrong and to show how. He's putting forth a bad faith theory and this is also what Trump does. This sort of cynicism / assumption of poor motives towards the media is bad for society.

There's no evidence to suggest they intentionally write brown recluse stories because it sells more. It's just as likely the media also gets innocently wrapped up in the myth. I'm not sure how you're defending that quote.