Paragraph 19

The caveat in paragraph number 19 is a phrase coined by Ben Goldacre which seeks to summarize the behaviour of journalists who make a striking claim in a headline in order to garner readership, expand on the claim in the headline in the first few paragraphs, but then either directly contradict the headline in a paragraph late on in the article or drop in a caveat so large that it renders the whole point of the article meaningless.

This behaviour relies on the fact that very few people read beyond the first few paragraphs of a news story, thus resulting in the readership coming away with a biased viewpoint of the subject in question.

But occasionally one story pops up to illustrate a wider issue, and “Strict diet two days a week ‘cuts risk of breast cancer by 40 per cent’” is a good example. It goes on: “a strict diet for two days a week consisting solely of vegetables, fruit, milk and a mug of Bovril could prevent breast cancer, scientists say.”

Now, obviously, if you have the time to track down the academic paper which this news article is describing, from the October edition of the International Journal of Obesity, you will immediately discover that it is not a study of breast cancer, and it does not find that the risk of cancer is reduced by 40% (although it does measure a couple of hormones). The press release wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of clarity either, as CRUK’s excellent science blog immediately pointed out, but in any case, the study doesn’t measure breast cancer as an outcome, at all.

But if I was to leave it there, then the journalist would correctly complain: because after all the grand and misleading claims, firstly, in the body of the piece, they do mention that the outcome is not cancer, but some hormones related to cancer (with no explanation of how tenuous that relationship is). Then, finally, at the very bottom of the piece, they have the reality. Although it’s not spoken in in the authoritative third person of the paper itself, it’s there, in a quote, at paragraph number 19.

“But Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘This study is not about breast cancer, it’s a study showing how different diet patterns affect weight loss and it’s misleading to draw any conclusions about breast cancer from this research.’”

The late caveat, torpedoing the central premise of a news piece, is a common strategy in many newspapers. But what use is this information, at the end of a long article, in paragraph number 19?