Vapid news filling the news void. And when you read the stories, they are strikingly, mindlessly identical. 40 and counting on a web search by 8 a.m. Central time today.
“Do you sometimes feel like you’re addicted to Oreos? Well, that might not be as crazy as it seems,” reports a St. Louis TV station.
“Addicted to Oreos? You truly might be,” reports the NBC Today show website.
“If you’ve ever been unable to stop yourself from eating too many Oreo cookies it may not be your fault,” reports Fox News.
“A recent scientific study shows that the reason your cookie-fueled Fourth Meal turns out to be such a fiasco is that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine,” reports the Philly.com website.
But did the study show that?
Not in people, only in rats.
All the stories we checked appeared to be based solely on a news release from Connecticut College, where the study was done.
Before I logged off, I just checked again. We’re now up to 50 stories. We could hit 100 by noon.
Journalism via news release – as addictive as crack.
Update at 11:22 a.m. Central time: as predicted, more than 100 stories now show up on a web search.
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Media coverage of a recent study is generating unwarranted hype about supplemental screening for cancer for women with dense breasts. https://lowninstitute.org/news/blog/media-misleads-on-mri-screening-for-breast-cancer/
Happy to see that my @HealthNewsRevu blog about progression-free survival confusion has been reposted by @kevinmd. https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/12/most-new-cancer-treatments-havent-been-proven-to-help-patients-live-longer-or-feel-better.html via @kevinmd
We are all worse off for not having @garyschwitzer's excellent, daily health care reporting, but his story today should sound the alarms and be a warning to anyone who gets health care information from local TV health news (read: much of America) (1/2) https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2019/11/why-hire-a-full-time-health-reporter-when-you-can-buy-news-off-the-shelf/#.Xeank0LWjyA.twitter
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