The scenario where an innocent researcher is minding their own business when the media suddenly seizes on one of their findings and blows it out of proportion is not at all the norm.16 The main problem with press releases isn’t that they routinely report earth-shaking findings that turn out to be erroneous. Instead, it’s that they puff up the results of often perfectly serviceable scientific papers, making them seem more important, ground-breaking, or relevant to people’s lives than they really are.
