Jerry is right, there are a great deal of subtleties involved with
different kinds of journalists.
   A science writer or an environmental journalist on staff would probably
not have made the bush-league drone gaffe that appeared in the Outside
magazine piece. A GA reporter (general assignment) working a news peg (woman
stung by bees) is more likely to err. But that person is also probably on a
fast deadline and has the least time to get back to you for fact checking.
There may be inaccuracies and distortions, but probably not deliberate or
malicious.
   In my experience, the one who is most tempted to deliberately distort is a
freelance journalist. A freelancer has to get noticed by busy assignment
editors out of a crowd of freelancers. Sometimes these people have to "hard
hustle" and story ideas get pumped up and overblown. Hopefully,
professionalism and accuracy will win out, but since the reporter doesn't get
paid, or doesn't get paid as much, if the story isn't published, there is
strong incentive to deliver what the magazine bought and not what the
reporting actually revealed.
   It's a management issue for editors that care about accuracy, and good
editors arrange their freelance relationships with reporters in such a way
that this kind of thing is less of a problem.
   Hyperbole cuts both ways though. I worked at a radio show that produced
one of the stories about the aforementioned San Francisco beekeeper. The
first time I heard we were doing the story, it was presented to me as "we are
doing a story about the guy who brought bees back to San Francisco," which
would probably have come as quite a surprise to the other beekeepers in that
city. That's the way the reporter pitched the story and it sufficiently
motivated the producer to buy it. We didn't say that in the final story
because it wasn't accurate, but you see how it is between freelancers and the
people that hire them.