The mammoth trees (Sequoia gigantea), California (Calaveras County) / executed in oil colors by Middleton, Strobridge & Co., Cin. O., circa 1860, courtesy Library of Congress

The tension between scientists and journalists goes back a long time:

The vaporings and idle imaginings of the newspaper man, I am compelled to believe, are more acceptable both to landlords and tourists, than any presentation of actual facts.

That’s University of California Professor C.B. Bradley, writing in Overland Monthly & Out West Magazine in 1886, trying to correct exaggerations about the age of California’s great Sequoias, which had become popular with the tourist trade. Quoted in Jared Farmer’s new book Trees in Paradise: A California History.