Quacks, hacks and pressing problems with press releases

Obviously we distrust the media on science: they rewrite commercial press releases from dodgy organisations as if they were health news, they lionise mavericks with poor evidence. But journalists will often say: what about those scientists with their press releases? Surely we should do something about them confusing us with their wild ideas?Now you may be inclined to think that a journalist should be capable of doing more than simply reading, and then rewriting, a press release; but we must accept that these are troubled times.Through our purchasing behaviour, we have communicated to newspapers that we want them to be large and cheap more than we want them to be adequately researched. So in this imperfect world it would be useful to know what's in academic press releases, since these are the people of whom we are entitled to have the highest expectations. A paper in the Annals of Internal...

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