Why do they not make an actual story out of this, do some research and publish whether there was some unusually high outflow of academics over the last two years?

25 people can not be an indication of anything. Academics especially are moving around often and take up work in different countries.

These are researchers from Harvard, Princeton, and MIT. Sometimes there are only a handful of people worldwide in a particular field doing top level research.

This Reuters article is based on a press release that was issued earlier today. The type of research you’re proposing would take weeks to be done, written and edited.

Either it's too hard or it would show a nothing-burger. Anecdotes are better for spreading misinformation when you're constrained by being factual.