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| Prehistoric pregnancy (Science News) |
On several occasions I have criticized the
distortion of scientific news by the media, especially the headlines, by saying
things contradicted by the text, which apparently are more
appealing. It seems that many journalists (at least those in
charge of headlines) follow the old journalistic dictum, usually quoted in several
forms, more or less equivalent, which, as is often the case with these lapidary
phrases, has been attributed (probably apocryphally) to diverse personalities, such
as William Randolph Hearst:
Do not let reality spoil a
good headline (or a good report).
What I think regrettable is the fact that a
magazine dedicated to scientific popularization, such as Science News, also falls
in this trap of offering appealing headlines, which after reading the text can
be seen not to correspond to the content. Let’s look at a few examples, offered
during the week of February 19, 2017:
