When organizations default back to kilometers in space news reports, what often occurs despite their familiarity?

The resulting figures obscure the true scale of the measurement.

There exists a communication trade-off when moving between specialized astronomical units (like AU or light-years) and the more common terrestrial unit of the kilometer. While kilometers are perceived as universally understood by the general public familiar with ground travel, using them to report vast cosmic distances results in figures consisting of excessively large strings of zeros. These enormous numbers fail to convey the true magnitude of the distance being described, effectively obscuring the scale of the measurement rather than clarifying it for the lay audience. Although useful for short-range precision, defaulting to kilometers for cosmic distances defeats the purpose of using scaled contextual units.