To me, it has to be a tension. What people want to know vs. what you as a writer think they need to know. For example, on the subject of youth football and brain safety, a lot of parents think the key is concussion management, whereas a lot of the medical thinking and at least a few studies is that the lion’s share of CTE is all the accumulated subconcussive hits. Well, you’ve got to tell parents this in a straightforward fashion.. . . means you end up trying to find out what people want to see/hear and tailor to that. This is troubling if not outright dangerous for journalistic diversity/integrity.
I’ve also had some success here at AH and elsewhere making the working assumption that my reader is actually slightly smarter than I am, just that he or she doesn’t know this particular topic.