Science and economic journalism are both pretty bad. My favorite thing (ok, one of my favorite things) about blogging/internet is that I can read real-time thoughts/opinions from actual scientists and economists now instead of having to rely on professional writers and media.
I've heard that actual scientists and economists are just a type of professional writer, as they must "publish or perish". I've even heard that in those publications, there is a push towards constructing narratives and telling stories. Do you know of scientists or economists who aren't paid to write that I can read from?
While true, they're only supposed to write things that can be independently reproduced and verified. If they have to layer narratives on top of their work to get people to care, I don't see any harm in that as long as it doesn't stray outside of the lines of fact.
A problem I've seen myself is that the original scientists aren't always the ones marketing their work. There's someone else (a layperson) at the university paid to do that, and they will often make claims that aren't substantiated by the original research.