I would largely agree with you that different styles are appropriate for different audiences (and I don’t think I was comparing your piece to the Daily Mail any more than I was to the NYT), but in application things inevitably become more messy. There’s no longer a relatively simple differentiation between scientific papers, newspaper coverage, and earnest blogging: instead, I think we are seeing a definite trend towards short, entertaining Buzzfeedy click-bait: the primary goal is no longer making the facts be as attractive and interesting as possible; but to write pieces that are as ironic, funny, frothy and as pop-culturally relevant as possible—even if at the expense of accuracy. I mean, we can see this even in the Deep Sea News piece you link to, where they explicitly call the squid a vegetarian, even though they contradict this conclusion in the same piece.
Now, this kind of facts-be-damned approach may not be inevitable, but I do think that when there is excessive focus on the audience and making science entertaining there is a much higher risk of inaccuracy. (And I think there a fair number of parallels to awareness-raising campaigns like Kony 2012.)
