It is lazy journalism only insofar as the journalist did not eliminate the blogspam by linking to reddit rather than the underlying study. Which is annoying, sure, but does not invalidate the conclusions, and the root comment seems to carry a connotation that the conclusion is not trustworthy on the basis it came from a public forum and not an authoritative source, when really it's just one degree removed.

The article is not using the Reddit post to support its position. The position support is in the paragraph below the graph from Reddit where it links to the source of the data.

All the Reddit post is there for is the handy graph it has that puts Texas and California side-by-side. In the source there are separate pages for each state so if you want a side-by-side comparison of Texas and California you have to make your own graph, or find someone who already did so and use theirs. I don't see anything wrong with doing the latter.

From another comment I gather there is a paywall that is stopping some people from seeing the full article. I wonder if that is cutting off the article right below the graph, so some people are not realizing that the article isn't based on the graph from Reddit?