[teejers1]

But I do think that our newspaper of record should have skipped this one. Am I wrong?

FWIW, I am glad these events are reported. It does mean the public has to understand it is a one off, and possibly the public won't do that. However, not reporting it means you are self-censoring and deciding the public has "no need to know". News sources can't do that. If there were several thousand such reports that all got self-censored that would be a problem, but nobody would know.
The newspaper should report what actually happened without coloring it. The woman went to the Hospital and is apparently OK. End of story. If they express opinions, or try to turn the one case into a trend, that is a different situation, and shouldn't happen.

Like reporting on any matter, context matters.  And it should be included.

It's fine reporting woman in Alaska had an adverse reaction to vaccine.  But it's very easy to also relay the total number of vaccines administered at facility __ or in whatever measurable unit vaccines are being distributed where the woman received hers.  You don't even have to say "and this is the only known case of a negative reaction - though that is probably useful information, if accurate.  Just provide the total number of vaccines administered there.

We had this discussion about reports of "Activity X" (I've already forgotten what that activity was) leading to a suspected outbreak.  If that's the only thing reported, then it is reasonably likely that readers will assume that Activity X ==> Covid.  Better reporting would have added the number of Activity Xs held.  Context matters.  In all stories.

[teejers1]

But I do think that our newspaper of record should have skipped this one. Am I wrong?

FWIW, I am glad these events are reported. It does mean the public has to understand it is a one off, and possibly the public won't do that. However, not reporting it means you are self-censoring and deciding the public has "no need to know". News sources can't do that. If there were several thousand such reports that all got self-censored that would be a problem, but nobody would know.
The newspaper should report what actually happened without coloring it. The woman went to the Hospital and is apparently OK. End of story. If they express opinions, or try to turn the one case into a trend, that is a different situation, and shouldn't happen.

Like reporting on any matter, context matters.  And it should be included.

It's fine reporting woman in Alaska had an adverse reaction to vaccine.  But it's very easy to also relay the total number of vaccines administered at facility __ or in whatever measurable unit vaccines are being distributed where the woman received hers.  You don't even have to say "and this is the only known case of a negative reaction - though that is probably useful information, if accurate.  Just provide the total number of vaccines administered there.

We had this discussion about reports of "Activity X" (I've already forgotten what that activity was) leading to a suspected outbreak.  If that's the only thing reported, then it is reasonably likely that readers will assume that Activity X ==> Covid.  Better reporting would have added the number of Activity Xs held.  Context matters.  In all stories.