I think what they're calling the both-sides treatment is misnamed to make it sound better than it is. One quote from each side isn't an equal treatment of both sides, it's a biased treatment towards the side with less to say.
This statement is something of a revelation to me: "One quote from each side isn't an equal treatment of both sides, it's a biased treatment towards the side with less to say."
I'd like to dive deeper into this, can you recommend any resources?
If you just made it up, then yeah, I very much agree. "There's no evidence for this" will always struggle to measure up against "romantic notion\fallacy\charisma for thing reader wants to be true"