"We are grateful to the public for following the restrictions, where in place, to conserve water in these dry conditions. Simple, everyday choices – such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails – also really helps the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife."

Sounds like a slip of the tongue. Or maybe written by AI and not checked.

Huh? That press release quotes the The Environment Agency’s Director of Water and National Drought Group chair saying "Simple, everyday choices – such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails – also really helps the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife" and includes "Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems" in its list of ways people should save water at home.

I admit I made this post without clicking through to the actual press release or seeing more than the paywall preview of the article; for a humorous post like this, i think just the headline from a paywalled article (if it's from a reputable source) is sufficient. Now that you got me to read the actual press release, I see I was correct to assume that 404media's amusing headline was in fact accurate.

How would you suggest they report this story differently? Highlighting the ridiculous part is what makes it worthy of reporting on it in their context at all.