[dghlsakjg]

It’s called long form feature writing. Many, many people enjoy it and do not want it exterminated. It’s a way to humanize and add emotion to complex topics. If you want, many outlets have bland straightforward bullet point articles. Try Axios.

Reading articles posted on HN is optional as are most things on the internet. If you don’t like the style in the first paragraph, stop reading. Getting fewer eyeballs on an article is typically a way to “exterminate” a style. Be aware, the articles that make the biggest waves tend to be long form feature writing. Given their influence and popularity you might find your extermination efforts to be quixotic.

[nubg]

But it's hallucinated slop? (by a human)

Is this literally true "bouncing along in a pink jacket and blue pants decorated with cartoon bears"?

or just what the author thought the scene could have looked like?

[dghlsakjg]

Not having witnessed it personally does not make it hallucinated slop. Journalists very often write about things they were told happened, and are believable. Most likely the parents told the writer, or showed them a picture.

On top of that Science is a reputable publication. They have fact checkers on staff. For a sensitive article like this it would have been independently gone over with a fine tooth comb. The fact checker will have seen a photo, or spoken directly with the family. This is all standard stuff in high level journalism like this.

There are journalism 101 courses you can audit to learn more about features, fact checking and how all this works. It seems like it would go a long way in improving your knowledge. Things like accusing journalists of fabricating things is a VERY serious accusation in that world. The writer is not going to make up the lede in a Science article on something that could be easily refuted by the parents and ruin their entire career.

It’s ok to not like feature writing or be ignorant of its existence and how it gets made. Calling for extermination and characterizing it as hallucinated slop with no evidence out of that ignorance is strangely aggressive.