Take a look at the press release I cooked up. It has everything. In reporter lingo: a sexy lede, a clear nut graf, some punchy quotes, and a kicker. And there’s no need to even read the scientific paper because the key details are already boiled down. I took special care to keep it accurate. Rather than tricking journalists, the goal was to lure them with a completely typical press release about a research paper. (Of course, what’s missing is the number of subjects and the minuscule weight differences between the groups.)
and
When reporters contacted me at all, they asked perfunctory questions. “Why do you think chocolate accelerates weight loss? Do you have any advice for our readers?” Almost no one asked how many subjects we tested, and no one reported that number. Not a single reporter seems to have contacted an outside researcher. None are quoted.
Let’s not make this about chocolate. Let’s keep in mind that the entities that covered this story, most of them were what you’d call traditional media or groups that are real press (not bloggers). Yet, not only did they link to the actual published paper, they didn’t vet or do any research at all into its claims.
Let’s assume that the people who wrote those articles are professionals who care about the work they do. They aren’t at fault because they aren’t paid by merit, by great story telling, by factual / accurate reporting. They’re paid by page-view or click-through of the advertisers on the site. The news media is so starved to stay out of the red that these “journalists” are forced to drum up click-bait un-verified mumbo jumbo all day, put up provocative /appealing photos, write 250 words and then move on to the next thing. “Maybe this is the one that will go viral on Facebook” they say and they hit submit and find another collection of “10 things that will kill you. #3 is shocking.”
Or maybe the entire quality of journalists has completely gone to crap. Sarah Lacy back in 2009:
It’s not that I’m pessimistic about the future for good journalists. Quite the opposite, in fact. Journalism isn’t dying; it’s just in a period of extreme volatility. And in any time of volatility, there’s huge room for opportunity. But you’re not going to learn how to exploit it in a stuffy classroom taught by people who got there by working at newspapers.
Right. Let’s all stop going to journalism school and write about fad diets and call ourselves journalists.