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Oh, and yes... it is certainly possible they were being short sighted, but I doubt they were being maliciously short sighted.
But I use the "mother test" when it comes to these things. Can I explain the difference to my mom in a useful way? Does she care? Does the article sound like it probably covers the basics for the sort of consumer my mother is? (Can work with Macs, PCs, but not tech savy aside from basic usage) This really has to be applied to any tech reporting before I get angry about it. And there's a place for discussion of these limitations in a real way - but it's not going to be in your standard consumer reporting or news.
The same also applies to religion, economics and politics. If I got in a tizzy every time some idiot reporter said something outright wrong about these issues I'd be having fits. But that's just more than the average consumer is interested in/needs to know. Most those things you mention really require quite a bit of "but...." if you want to clarify them.
Those distinctions are important. That's what mobileread is for, and ideally, some of the better tech magazines. But generally speaking, they pass the 'mother test' and that's the best you can hope for.
It's like trying to get into why people should use ogg-vorbis music players or something. No one cares except its proponents because most people don't understand the underlying issues nor care to - they just want to play their music.
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