One of the most common problems is a change from a correlation found by academics to a causal link reported by journalists. ('Marriage produces stable families, says study.')
The unjustified mutation is rarely identified. But Steve Hewlett, on BBC Radio 4's The Media Show, got the bit between his teeth to investigate what was behind headlines like:
'Long-term harm' of too much TV for toddlers (BBC Online)
Children who watch television 'more likely to be bullied' (Telegraph.co.uk)
TV can make tots less intelligent and chubbier: study (CTV News - Canada)
He spoke to Caroline Fitzpatrick, from the University of Montreal, one of the authors of the study on which the stories were based.
It turned out that it wasn't sloppy journalists who decided that what Fitzpatrick described as a "modest but consistent connection" between toddlers' television viewing and later academic, social and physical problems should be blamed on TV.
It was the university's own press release: "Want kids that are smarter and thinner? Keep them away from the television set when they're toddlers."
There were plenty of other negative social factors associated with higher television viewing among toddlers, which might have caused the later problems, Hewlett suggested.
Although Fitzpatrick claimed the study had 'controlled' for those, she didn't claim television was necessarily the crucial factor causing the later disadvantages: "We don't want people to think the television is going to cause something negative."
Hewlett: "Well, except that is what you say."
Fitzpatrick: "The article that you're reading is not what we said; it's what a journalist has said."
Hewlett: "It's your university press release."
It got worse for Fitzpatrick: it wasn't even just the university press officer who was to blame. One of her co-authors was quoted in the release, implying a causal link which Fitzpatrick admitted "probably should have been phrased" differently.
Game, set and match to Hewlett.
Listen to the full interview here (from 12.00 minutes into the programme from 5 May).
