View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Comment
June 1, 2015

Lessons for journalists from the fake chocolate weight-loss research which duped UK news outlets

By Dominic Ponsford

UK news outlets including Mail Online, the Daily Express and the Daily Star were among news organisations around the world foxed into reporting bogus claims that chocolate encourages weight loss.

The story, from last September, was based on a press release put out by the fake Institute of Diet and Health as part of a sting for a German documentary.

A real study scientific study was carried out with just 16 participants split up into three different groups to back up the claim.

Because the sample size was so small, the researchers were able to cherry pick results to find one misleading element which suggested eating chocolate each day aided weight loss.

The study was then published on a journal called the International Archives of Medicine.

The journal is supposed to be peer-reviewed, but charges 600 Euros to publish articles.

Evidently, in this case it made few if any checks to see how robust the study was.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

The scientist behind the scam, John Bohannon, explains in detail how he carried it out here.

To be fair to the journalists concerned, this was a sophisticated scam.

But to find out how small the sample size was, they would have simply had to phone up and check (it was not in the full journal write-up).

The story made the front page of Bild, Germany’s top-selling newspaper.

Bohannon said: “When reporters contacted me at all, they asked perfunctory questions. ‘Why do you think chocolate accelerates weight loss? Do you have any advice for our readers?’ Almost no one asked how many subjects we tested, and no one reported that number. Not a single reporter seems to have contacted an outside researcher. None is quoted.”

The lessons from this story appear to be:

  • Always check the sample size
  • Always sanity check stories wth an expert in the field
  • Beware bogus organisations set up on fake websites
  • Beware flakey pay-to-play peer-review scientific journals.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network