this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bohannon#Intentionally_misleading_chocolate_study
Yes, people would exactly do the same, because nobody reads anything but the headline of a paper. Even journalists don't.
AI didn't invent the problem, but it put the problem on steroids.
Not sure what point your making here, I wouldn't expect most journalists to be great at reading the details of papers like this...
Research and fact checking is what separates journalists from hacks.
"Journalist" implies factual information, not science fiction. If someone writes a "news" story about the magic land of Xanth because they can't tell the difference between a Piers Anthony novel and a scientific study it's not Piers Anthony's fault for being too "tricky".
Vetting sources is the one thing we need journalists for. If they don't vet their sources, their work is without merit.
Reading at least the methodology section of a paper and googling if the researchers and the institute exists, is the bare minimum of what a decent journalist should do.
If they can't do that, then there's no advantage of a journalist over some random person posting on Facebook. Even Youtubers usually vet their sources better.