Views on News, July 22, Edition

VIEWS ON NEWSJULY 22, 2015 `50

Iconic paper stares at imminent closure: Whos responsible? 10Nihal Singh, Raghu Rai speak out

www.viewsonnewsonline.com

MURDOCH EMPIRE: Sons Rise Over Horizon26

CHOCOLATES: How to make

fake research into news

16

OUTLOOK: Sexist gossip

boomerangs 42

LaMogateSTILL WIDE OPEN 50

YOGAMODIS NEW HINDUTVA AGENDA

44

GADA 44

Governance Section

On The Chopping Block

THE NESTLE-MANUFACTURED Maggi noodlesstory has social and economic ramifications thatgo way beyond the controversy of their suitabilityfor mass consumption and whether lead and otherpoisonous substances were added to the productfor taste enhancement and shelf-life longevity.

What is at stake is the very concept of adver-tising. Nothing sells or spreads without advertisingprojecting the value of a message, a sermon, aproduct, a technology, a method. Advertising is asold a method of reaching out to others as the Sermon on the Mount or Buddhas discourses atSarnath. Nothing wrong with the use of a pulpit. Butits misuse for spreading disinformation deservespunishment either by the gods themselves or, in themodern era, by specific laws designed to protect

the susceptible from thedevilish ways of snake oilsalesmen.

One such defensivetool fashioned to safe-guard children and sus-ceptible audiences fromthe deluge of disinforma-tion in the so-called Infor-mation Age is looselyknown as the ConsumerMovement which begangathering momentum inthe 1960s in the US underthe banner of the intrepidcrusader, Ralph Nader. Hesaw the rapacity of unbri-dled corporations, work-ing hand-in-glove with

politicians and the media to dupe vulnerable patronsand clients into buying unsafe and unreliable prod-ucts, as the greatest threat to Americas freedomand entrepreneurial spirit.

His book, Unsafe At Any Speed, took on themighty US automobile industry head on, exposinghow it deliberately cut corners and endangeredpublic safety for naked profit.

As a famous blurb for the book says: The bookhas continuing relevance: it addressed what Naderperceived as the political meddling of the car indus-try to oppose new safety features, which parallelsthe debates in the 1990s over the mandatory fittingof air bags in the United States, and industry effortsby the industry lobby to delay the introduction ofcrash tests to assess vehicle-front pedestrian pro-tection in the European Union.

Naders crusade ultimately led to the introduc-tion of seat-belts in all American automobiles, apractice that spread across the world. But the mainlesson from Naders Raiders, as the followers ofhis movement were called, was that as the Infor-mation Age and Consumer Age were spreadingwith ferocious rapidity, consumers, in order to keepabreast with the misuse of advertisingincreas-ingly through the electronic medianeeded to beprotected from predatory corporations and danger-ous claims and products.

Even as the reach and power of advertisingbroadened, so did the skepticism and caution of theconsumer. The introduction of seat belts was fol-lowed by landmark decisions such as banning cig-arette advertising on TV and controlling violence inTV programming for children. And the US politicalsystem and Congress struck a delicate balance

THE SCOURGE OF DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING

EDIT

OR

S N

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4 VIEWS ON NEWS July 22, 2015

between freedom of speech and opinion, as guar-anteed by the First Amendment of the Constitutionand the right of the individual not to be bamboozledby false and deceptive advertising.

The major regulatory blow against false adver-tising was struck by the Federal Trade Commission,which started a special cell to monitor deceptiveadvertising, a term used for describing claimsmade by products on the basis of falsehoods orwithout scientific evidence.

The federal government, through the FederalCommunications Commission which ensures fair-ness in spectrum allocation as well as broadcastcontent, armed itself with the powers to cancelbroadcast licenses of TV channels if challenged bycitizen petitions on the grounds of misleading adsor the failure of channels to uphold the highest stan-dards of fairness and probity.

All this may sound draconian, but in practice, itis not. Industry associations, consumer groups andregulatory agencies work in close concert to ensurethat the media remains free from political interfer-ence and control as well as free from deceptive advertising.

But this issues ProPublica story on chocolatesshows that it is not difficult to manufacture sci-entific evidence and make some outrageousclaim about the safety and efficacy of a product.The Indian regulatory framework for consumer pro-tectionexcept for the mostly dysfunctional MRTPhas not reached any real level of sophistication.Actors wearing white gowns and posing as doc-tors make any claim they want to for medicinalproducts. Scientists cite statistics to sell cure-alls. Milk additive makers claim Horlicks will fortify

milk without warning consumers that the productis a carbohydrate enhancer which could add to theIndian diabetes epidemic. Paint companies claimweather-proof colors and cement companies guar-antee walls against earthquakes. Actors sell skin-whiteners. Do we know if these creams containpoisons? Do they whiten the skin? Do they exacer-bate societal tendencies towards Aryan racism?Even the benefits of yoga can be hyped!

The Nestle Maggi noodle controversy is a nec-essary, awareness-enhancing development in anIndia that hurtles into the universe of consumerism,unprotected from the accompanying specter of deceptive advertising.

5VIEWS ON NEWS July 22, 2015

The ProPublica story on chocolatesshows that its not difficult to manufacture scientific evidenceand make an outrageous claim aboutthe safety and efficacy of a product.

Anil Shakya

C O N

LEDE

Unstately Burial? 10The possession of Statesman House in Kolkata by SBI portends the demiseof a newspaper that was once the pride of the city, reports SUJIT BHAR

MEDIA MONITORING

I Fooled Millions Into ThinkingChocolate Helps Weight Loss

16

A Pro-Publica exclusive report by JOHN BOHANNON on how sensationalheadlines and smart presentation can dupe lazy journalists

Editor Rajshri Rai

Managing EditorRamesh Menon

Deputy Managing EditorShobha John

Executive EditorAjith Pillai

Business EditorShantanu Guha Ray

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Deputy EditorsPrabir Biswas

Niti SinghArt Director

Anthony LawrenceDeputy Art Editor

Amitava SenGraphic Designer

Lalit KhitoliyaPhotographer

Anil ShakyaNews Coordinator/Photo Researcher

Kh Manglembi DeviProduction

Pawan Kumar

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FOCUS

Its A Womans World 23VON team visits Bibipur village in Haryana where a unique selfie contest withdaughters has grabbed the nations attention


T E N T S

LaMo JuggernautRolls On 48

R E G U L A R SEdit..................................................04Grapevine........................................08Quotes.............................................09Design Review.................................36Anchor Review.................................40Breaking News.................................41

The passing away of Praful Bidwai was ahuge loss to journalism and the leftistmovement. SEEMA GUHA writes amoving tribute

The government has belatedly sentED officials to Singapore to probemoney laundering by Lalit Modi, reports SHANTANU GUHA RAY

Cover design: Anthony Lawrence

BOOK REVIEW

Dark Days of Excess 38RAJENDRA BAJPAI reviews Coomi Kapoorsbook on the Emergency,where she recounts howdictatorship in 1975steam-rolled all democratic institutions

CONTROVERSY

Outlook In A Soup 42The magazine courts controversy bycalling a lady IAS officer eye candyand is slapped with a legal notice. AVON TEAM report

Sons Rise Over Ruperts Kingdom 26Rupert Murdoch hangs up his boots,handing over the top jobs to his twosons. MR DUA reports on the changeand profiles the media baron

OBITUARY

A Passionate Crusader 32

The global daily shuts down its Indianedition, reports SHANTANU GUHA RAY

SPOTLIGHT

WSJ says goodbye 34

MODI CONTROVERSY

How deep is the rot? 50Despite clumsydamage-control, theModi government hassurvived the firstround of the LaMocrisis, reportsABHAY VAIDYA

Governance

Universal Panacea? 44The media asked few questionsabout yogas claims nor warnedabout pitfalls, observesDINESH C SHARMA

YOGA INITIATIVE

SPECIAL REPORT

Whats TheWhole Truth? 35Media circles areabuzz over PrabhuChawlas removalas editorial directorof The New IndianExpress


Party PoliticsAAT A SOCIAL gathering in Delhi recently, BJP MPRajiv Pratap Rudy was describing how Biharipolitician Pappu Yadav had maltreated a stewardessof a private airline. No FIR was launchedor any action taken, he com-plained. He said that he keptwondering where India washeading. Obviously, he wastalking animatedly becausethe audience comprisedBihari politicians andbureaucrats, and he wantedto score political brownie points. A bystander wastempted to ask him why he was complaining whenhis own party was in power at the center. There wasno answer from Rudy.

Jaya bats for Doordarshan

THE IRREPRESSIBLE LaluYadav has decided that his partywill bank on tamtams (tongas) to counter the mainrival BJP, in the upcomingBihar elections. He feelsthat while the BJP moveson big wheels on highways,the RJD will move on tamtams, on smaller lanes andbylanes, carrying the message to all. So, the plan is to roll out 50such horse-drawn carriages in each assembly constituency, with RJD candidates carrying the message of Lalu, from house-to-house. The tamtams are to be hired for `500 per day. Thecampaign will generate employment for drivers as well. Lalucertainly hopes to ride to glory on horsepower!

Tamtams for Lalu

Compiled by Roshni SethIllustrations: UdayShankar

RECENTLY, MEMBER of Parliament JayaBachchan, in a parliamentary committee

meeting, took up cudgels on behalf ofDoordarshan (DD). There are still people in India who believe Doordar-shan News to be the most authenticnews, she said. Does the extendedBachchan family watch DD? She saidthe main problem that afflicted DDwas that the presentation was not

attractive. She suggested that a consulting agency be hired for the im-

provement required. One wonders if she hadherself or anybody from her family in mind.And the option would work wonders for DD!

Grapevine

ONE OF the Modi governments primary campaigns is Beti Bachao.However, the slogan seems to haveslightly gone off-track and is nowmostly applicable to the majorityparty in parliament, the BJP, withfour of their betis, SushmaSwaraj, Vasundhara Raje, PankajaMunde and Smriti Irani, underfire. The BJP is doing all it can tosave the betis. The prime ministermentioned #SelfieWithDaughter

campaign in his radio address,Mann Ki Baat. Meanwhile, theOne Year No Scam slogan tocelebrate the completion of ayear in power, also seems tohave hit turbulent waters. Every-thing started moving in thewrong direction as soon as the slogan was publicized. Is it just acoincidence that women are involved in the so-called scams.More power to women?

Beti Bachao Campaign

Secret VisitorA RECENT reply from the PMO said that business tycoon Gautam Adanis visits to the PMs RaceCourse Road residence in Delhi are exempt from disclosure under the RTI Act. The PMO said thatthe PM met people from all walks of life, not neces-

sarily upon formal request, andoften, guests want their meet-ings to be kept secret. Beforethis, we knew there weresome politicians and minis-ters whose visits to the PMOwere kept under the radar.But anybody can guess as towhy Adanis visits are secret.


U O T E SQRana Ayub, JournalistOk BJP, can u please stop sendingspokespersons on tv debates whowant us to answer our (media)silence on scams during UPAregime ! Really?

Shekhar Gupta, Editorial Advisor, India Today23rd witness dies in #VyapamScam,1 accused dead too. Is it keepingpace with Asaram Bapu case dyingwitnesses? & we call #lalitleaksscam!

Nitish Kumar, CM, BiharBihar is too wise to be lured by BJPattempt to mask its failures withcocktail of brazen caste politics &rhetoric of Modijis global image.

Subramanian Swamy,BJP leaderWhat right has Congi to ask for Sm-riti to resign ? In NH case Sonia andRahul did not resign even afterSummons was issued. Hypocrites.

Nikhil Wagle, JournalistCongress has no credibility to accusePankaja. The blacklisted NGO is sup-ported by their leaders from Konkanregion n favored by their govt.

P Chidambaram, Congress leaderPIO who criticized #AFSPA deported.Will citizens who criticized be deported as well?

It (drinking) is ones fundamen-tal right. Drinking is a socialstatus symbol these days. Alcohol does not increase crime.People lose their consciousnessafter consuming alcohol andthat's how it causes crime. Theperson who drinks within control, does not cause crime...one should not overdrink.

Babulal Gaur, Madhya PradeshHome Minister

I think the law ministerwas misquoted. Our

party position has beenthat homosexuality is a

genetic disorder. Subramanian Swamy, BJP

leader, on scrapping of Section377 of IPC

History books were mostly writtenby rulers, so one must do a fair research and find out what had historically happened. Theyshould be written by people of excellent academics.

Abdul Kalam Azad, former president,in The Economic Times

All BJP leaders whoare above the age of

75 were declaredbrain dead on 26th

May 2014.Yashwant Sinha, ex-finance minister


HIS is the archetypal storyone hears about an institu-tion in decline. One after-noon, a couple of yearsback, two former Statesmanjournalists were walking

down the Esplanade in Kolkata. They stoppedbriefly, almost by force of habit, at the gate of TheStatesman House building on Chittaranjan Avenueand peered in. This had once been their hallowedplace of worka beehive of activity and regal an-cestry with history virtually written on its walls. But on that day, it unfortunately looked unkemptand in a messall its glory had to be recounted inthe past tense.

Even as the two were reminiscing the good olddays, a passerby stopped and shared his thoughts.Do you know what a great paper used to come outof this building? It is in a shambles now. What ashame! The journalists were speechless. The gen-tleman who had interrupted their conversationseemed to be voicing a sentiment that mostKolkatans would endorse.

Shame, probably is the appropriate word to de-scribe the fall of a tradition and a brand as close toa Kolkatans heart as possibly Colgate toothpaste andDurga Puja. The Statesman was a paper on the veryplinth of which a Kolkata kids future would be built.Children would be virtually ordered by parents toread The Statesman if they were to be any good in

T

It was once the pride of Kolkata. But a July 24 possession notice by SBI has put the final nail in

the coffin of a venerable paper and showed howeven a great institution can sink if left to drift

BY SUJIT BHAR

LedeThe Statesman

UNSTATELYBURIAL?


English. This was the paper that was respected assecond only to the London Times during the hey-days of the British Raj. Its editorial content was anexample to follow for its style, substance and objec-tivity. And it continued to hold its sway much afterthe British gave up ownership in 1963. Rememberhow The Statesman did itself proud by standing upagainst the Emergency, much like how it refused tobuckle to the diktats of the British government before Independence?

Those were the days... But what of now?

WHAT A FALLA July 24, 2015, advertisement says it all. A Posses-sion Notice, issued by the State Bank of India (SBI),

and released in all major dailies of Kolkata, con-firmed the fears of many in the city: the venerableStatesman is on its deathbed and the very symbol ofall that it stands forThe Statesman House build-ingwould be attached to the bank. In short, asthings stand, if the paper manages to operate fromthe premises from where it currently does, then itwould do so as a tenant. Not an enviable situation

Technically, The Statesman has 60 days(from the date of the notice) to cough upthe `35.14 crore, plus interest, to have theattachment notice vacated. Any relief atthis stage will be temporary.


remain and the credibility of the iconic daily wouldhave taken a hit. As Nikhil Mookherjee, once a sen-ior editor of The Statesman puts it: The structure(of The Statesman) remains, but the soul hasdrained out.

The debt that The Statesman owes to SBI ishuge. Putting the building up for sale could providethe finances to clear the debt and start afresh. Butselling the building may be easier said than done.Several tenantsthe Calcutta Electric Supply Cor-

RICH LEGACY(Clockwise from

above) RobertKnight, the founder

editor; CR Irani, atthe helm during

Emergency; PranChopra, the first

Indian editor of thepublication;

Ravindra Kumar,the current editor;Sunanda K Dutta

Ray, noted commentator

to be in for a paper which was established in 1875and has occupied the building since it was inaugu-rated by Sir John Anderson, then governor of Bengal,on January 18, 1933.

Technically, The Statesman has 60 days (from thedate of the notice) to cough up the ` 35.14 crore, plusinterest, to have the attachment notice vacated. According to a source, the management of the dailyhas gone to court for a stay on the order. Even if thatis granted, it will be temporary reliefthe debt will

ROBERT KNIGHT was the founder editor who was also associated with The Times of India. Ian Stephens made newswhen he carried detailed accounts of the 1943 BengalFamine although there was a gag order from the British government on graphic descriptions of the tragedy. Evan Charlton responded to a Times London advertisementand was selected as a trainee journalist for The Statesman. Helater became the last British editor of the daily.

Pran Chopra was the first Indian editor of the paper.

S Nihal Singh, Amalendu Dasgupta and Sunanda K DuttaRay are all noted commentators associated with The Statesman.

CR Irani was the editor known for having taken a stronganti-government stand during the Emergency.

Ravindra Kumar is the current editor.

The Hall of Fame


LedeThe Statesman

I feel sad, I am crestfallen.The Statesman was my

alma mater, I started my career with some old cam-eras and lenses from thatred-colored building in theheart of Delhi.

We had some of thefinest editors in India shap-ing the paper like EvanCharlton, Desmond Doig,who were fearless andmade the daily fearless. They were not worried about their owners like present-dayeditors. They spoke the truth, walked the truthand were revered by the staff and readers.

They ensured that the newspapers loyalty was to its readers. That was the red line for them.

I sincerely feel that ever since CR Iranistarted taking an interest in the managementof the paper and eventually took over it, thedaily started declining. It went down, downand down.

I had some infamous brushes with Irani.My repeated attempts to tell him that weneeded new cameras and lenses always fellon deaf ears as he would skirt the issue everytime by saying: We will talk.

Once, after returningfrom London, he called meto his room to offer a smallgift, a pair of cufflinks. I expressed my gratitude, butstill asked for new camerasand lenses.

Irani was furious. He argued that he was the MDand had many pressing engagements and couldnot be only bothered about

cameras and lenses. I threw the packet on histable, told him to keep it and walked out.

Irani complained to the editor, S NihalSingh, who asked mevery, very gently that evening: You could have avoided thatshowdown, Raghu.

After that, Irani started acting funny withme, pushing me out of some real good assignments. I resigned eight months later. Itwas 1977, when India saw a new governmentand also a new Cola that did not last.

I told Irani in my resignation note: I willbe a cameraman without The Statesman. Butyou cannot be an MD without the paper.

I could foresee the papers death in 1977. As told to Shantanu Guha Ray

The bosses killed TheStatesman

poration, for instancemay not readily vacate.Added to that is the possible debt burden (apartfrom the SBI loan) that the management is bur-dened with. Once those are cleared, it will leave thepublication with limited credit-worthiness in themarket to generate immediate funds. So what is theother option? There is a possibility of a friendlybusiness house willing to take over. But will TheStatesman be the same again?

HERITAGE STRUCTUREAs things stand, if the banks control of the States-man House is confirmed by the court, there wouldbe a statutory auction of the property. Whether thepaper would be allowed to stay and function withinthe premises would be decided by the court. However, there is one saving grace. The buildinghas been declared a heritage structure, and its fa-cade and basic structure cannot be changed. So theStatesman House is likely to remain intact althoughunder a new ownership.

To get an idea of the institution that The States-man once was, one has to dip into history. For therecord, the paper was the direct offshoot of twopublications, The Englishman and The Friend ofIndia. They were both published from Kolkata(then Calcutta) and started in 1811 by Robert

Well-known photo-journalist Raghu Rai looks backon the time spent in this iconic paper

Raghu Rais photograph of refugees from East Pakistan, published in The Statesman in 1971


racist and colonial bias creep into its reportage. Infact, the paper was critical of several anti-India poli-cies of the Crown and was the only mainstream In-dian paper to go against the British governmentdiktat to refrain from graphic coverage of the Ben-gal famine of 1943.

The Statesman continued its good work muchafter Independence. It was only in 1963 that itsBritish owners decided to transfer ownership to In-dian hands. But they decided that no individualshould own the paper. So a consortium of respectedbusiness houses, among which the Tatas were un-derstandably in the lead, were chosen. The papersbroad policy was outlined in a charter signed by thenew and old owners which underlined editorialfreedom. A board of trustees was set up to ensurethat the editor was protected from undue interfer-ence by the management. It was a unique arrange-ment that lasted a while, adding to the dailysalready humongous reputation.

SLOW DECLINEBut this changed after the board was disbanded andCR Irani was appointed editor and managing di-

Knight, who was later the principal founder and ed-itor of The Times of India. It was on January 15, 1875,that The Englishman and The Friend of India weremerged into one brand called The Statesman.

The Times of India may have started in 1838much before The Statesman, but the formers domainwas restricted to the Bombay Presidency for a longperiod. The Statesman, however, started its Delhi edi-tion as early as 1932 (The Times got to the nationalcapital only in 1950) and therefore enjoyed tremen-dous clout at the seat of the Raj.

Though it wielded influence, it was to the creditof its top management and editors that they never let

I AM shocked to hear the news of the State Bank of India acquiring the Statesman Housebuilding.

Some years ago, I was in Kolkata and wasstanding close to the building when a firegutted the first floor and the entire editorialteam was shifted to the top floor.

A rubble collector had brought his vanand was loading all that had become black

and distasteful after the fire swept throughthe building. I walked right into the roomwhere I had worked as editor and nearlybroke down. It was my room and now, all thebooks, clippings, furniture, were reduced torubble and handed over to the collector.

The Statesman was not a paper; it was apart of Indian history. When the CalcuttaFamine took place, the daily kept India andthe world updated about the horrific incident. I spent 25-and-a-half years withthat newspaper.

The editors, the ones from England, were brilliant, and cared only about journal-ism. Kids in Kolkata would be told by theirparents to read the newspaper to improvetheir English.

And then, the decline started, mainly because of an over-ambitious managementwhich did not know how to grow, and whento grow. Today, it is a pity that the paper isconsidered a rag in a city that once called it aBible of news.

As told to Shantanu Guha Ray

Rag in a city that oncecalled it a Bible of newsSS Nihal Singh, former editor of The Statesman, expresses his sorrow at the decline of the newspaper

ARCHIVAL VALUE(Above right) A 1947

Statesman broadsheet,

mounted in a Delhi museum


LedeThe Statesman

quently, revenues. Very clearly, the complacency that set in was

never arrested. The Statesman went on a downwardspiral and those in command simply watched thedecline mutely. Many insiders say the alarm bellshad begun to ring some two decades ago as thedebts began to pile up. But it took time for the real-ization to sink in that even a great institution cansink if it is left to drift.

Today, there is gloom within Statesman House.Many fear that the end is near. Only a miracle cansave what once was the pride of Kolkata.

rector. Though he is credited with the strong anti-government stand he took during the Emergency,there is a view that he also presided over the declineof the paper (See Raghu Rai interview).

In 1982, under the editorship of MJ Akbar (thethen editor of the weekly magazine, Sunday), theAnandabazar Patrika Group (ABP) started a newEnglish daily, The Telegraph. Akbar was given 11months to prove that the new publication wouldfind its place in the market. He took up the chal-lenge and delivered. Many years later, when TheTelegraph had overtaken The Statesman in circula-tion, a huge hoarding facing the Statesman Housedeclared: Salaam Statesman. It was a quirky saluteto the once-leader for allowing an upstart to pass.

According to Mookherjee, the difference between the old paper and its young competitorwas stark. The Statesman was more of a desk-dri-ven paper, unlike The Telegraph, which was reporter-driven and aided by a strong desk as well.Young readers soon switched allegiance to themodern, snappier and better-designed Telegraph.The times were obviously changing but The States-man refused to move from its stodgy ways. Withcirculation dipping, so did advertising and conse-

An editor with Oxbridge antecedents (it would be unfair to name him here)wrote his edits on paper napkins at the bar and sent it back to the officethrough a peon. The spirited edits were known for their quality.

Hamdi Bey, a senior and reputed journalist with the daily was an enigma.Not because of his drinkingthat never seemed to affect him anyway butbecause of the sheer length and breadth of knowledge and his ability to write articles off the cuff at very short notice. In those pre-internet days, he was a wonder.

Dharani Ghosh headed a special obituary section called the Morgue in The Statesman. Ghosh used to painfully update himself with the lives of all important people around the country. Not only that, he had files on people of

advanced age, or those critically ill. In the case of a late night death, even ifGhosh was not around, a sub-editor would be able to easily find the files andcompose a fine obituary out of the information gathered by Ghosh. He was alsoa famous drama critic.

The Statesman canteen was no ordinary one. Neither was its lunch or dinner.Liveried waiters were in attendance to serve what could be described as a mealfit for the sahibs. Old timers, such as Nikhil Mookherjee, would compare it withthe best available menu served in any star restaurant or club in the city.

During one Durga Puja immersion ceremony, a photographer was instructedto click a fresh photograph. He, in his laziness, passed on an old picture and itwas prominently printed on the front page. The following morning, a few people turned up at The Statesman office. Reason: Amid the crowd in the photograph, they had spotted a relative, who had been missing for a few years.They wanted to know where and when the picture was taken. The photogra-pher was caught out.

The Statesman Vintage Car Rally was possibly the best such rally in the coun-try. It became a tradition every February. And being seen in that event, in yourold reconditioned car, was a matter of immense pride for many.

Statesman SnippetsThe stories that emanate from The Statesmanare the stuff of legends. Here are a few thatstill do the rounds

NEW ORDERThe swanky structurewhich has replaced the red oldStatesman Building inNew Delhi


Media MonitoringHealth Research

I Fooled Millions IntoThinking ChocolateHelps Weight Loss


Anil Shakya

LIM by Chocolate! the head-lines blared. A team of Ger-man researchers had foundthat people on a low-carb dietlost weight 10 percent faster ifthey ate a chocolate bar every

day. It made the front page of Bild, Europes largestdaily newspaper, just beneath their update about theGermanwings crash. From there, it ricochetedaround the Internet and beyond, making news inmore than 20 countries and half-a-dozen languages.It was discussed on television news shows. It ap-peared in glossy print, most recently in the Juneissue of Shape magazine (Why You Must EatChocolate Daily, page 128). Not only does choco-late accelerate weight loss, the study found, but itleads to healthier cholesterol levels and overall in-creased well-being. The Bild story quotes the studyslead author, Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D., research di-rector of the Institute of Diet and Health: The bestpart is you can buy chocolate everywhere.

I am Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D. Well, actually myname is John, and Im a journalist. I do have a Ph.D.,but its in the molecular biology of bacteria, not hu-mans. The Institute of Diet and Health? Thats noth-ing more than a website.

Other than those fibs, the study was 100 percentauthentic. My colleagues and I recruited actualhuman subjects in Germany. We ran an actual clin-ical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to differ-ent diet regimes. And the statistically significantbenefits of chocolate that we reported are based onthe actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical studyfor the field of diet research. Which is to say: It wasterrible science. The results are meaningless, and the

S

A Pro-Publica exclusivereport on how sensationalheadlines and smartpresentation can dupelazy journalistsBY JOHN BOHANNON

health claims that the media blasted out to millionsof people around the world are utterly unfounded.

Heres how we did it.

THE SETUPI got a call in December last year from a Germantelevision reporter named Peter Onneken. He andhis collaborator, Diana Lbl, were working on adocumentary film about the junk-science diet in-dustry. They wanted me to help demonstrate justhow easy it is to turn bad science into the big head-lines behind diet fads. And Onneken wanted to doit gonzo style: Reveal the corruption of the diet re-search-media complex by taking part.

The call wasnt a complete surprise. The year be-fore, I had run a sting operation for Science onfee-charging open access journals, a fast-growingand lucrative new sector of the academic publishingbusiness. To find out how many of those publishersare keeping their promise of doing rigorous peer re-view, I submitted ridiculously flawed papers andcounted how many rejected them. (Answer: fewerthan half.)

Onneken and Lbl had every-thing lined up: a few thousandEuros to recruit research subjects, aGerman doctor to run the study,and a statistician friend to massagethe data. Onneken heard about myjournal sting and figured that Iwould know how to pull it all to-gether and get it published. Theonly problem was time: The filmwas scheduled to be aired on Ger-man and French television, so wereally only had a couple of monthsto pull this off.

Could we get something pub-lished? Probably. But beyond that?I thought it was sure to fizzle. Wescience journalists like to think ofourselves as more clever than theaverage hack. After all, we


of the treatment groups lost about 5 pounds overthe course of the study, while the control groups av-erage body weight fluctuated up and down aroundzero. But the people on the low-carb diet pluschocolate? They lost weight 10 percent faster. Notonly was that difference statistically significant, butthe chocolate group had better cholesterol readingsand higher scores on the well-being survey.

THE HOOKI know what youre thinking. The study did showaccelerated weight loss in the chocolate groupshouldnt we trust it? Isnt that how science works?

Heres a dirty little science secret: If you measurea large number of things about a small number ofpeople, you are almost guaranteed to get a statisti-cally significant result. Our study included 18 dif-ferent measurementsweight, cholesterol, sodium,

have to understand arcane scientific research wellenough to explain it. And for reporters who donthave science chops, as soon as they tapped outsidesources for their storiesreally anyone with a sciencedegree, let alone an actual nutrition scientisttheywould discover that the study was laughably flimsy.Not to mention that a Google search yielded no traceof Johannes Bohannon or his alleged institute. Re-porters on the health science beat were going to smellthis a mile away. But I didnt want to sound pes-simistic. Lets see how far we can take this, I said.

THE CONOnneken and Lbl wasted no time. They used Face-book to recruit subjects around Frankfurt, offering150 Euros to anyone willing to go on a diet for threeweeks. They made it clear that this was part of a doc-umentary film about dieting, but they didnt givemore detail. On a cold January morning, five menand 11 women showed up, aged 19 to 67.

Gunter Frank, a general practitioner in on theprank, ran the clinical trial. Onneken had pulled himin after reading a popular book Frank wrote railingagainst dietary pseudoscience. Testing bitter choco-late as a dietary supplement was his idea. When Iasked him why, Frank said it was a favorite of thewhole food fanatics. Bitter chocolate tastes bad,therefore it must be good for you, he said. Its likea religion.

After a round of questionnaires and blood tests toensure that no one had eating disorders, diabetes, orother illnesses that might endanger them, Frank ran-domly assigned the subjects to one of three dietgroups. One group followed a low-carbohydrate diet.Another followed the same low-carb diet plus a daily1.5 oz. bar of dark chocolate. And the rest, a controlgroup, were instructed to make no changes to theircurrent diet. They weighed themselves each morningfor 21 days, and the study finished with a final roundof questionnaires and blood tests.

Onneken then turned to his friend Alex Droste-Haars, a financial analyst, to crunch the numbers.One beer-fueled weekend later and... jackpot! Both

Onneken andLbl were

working on adocumentary

film about thejunk-science

diet industry.They wanted

me to helpdemonstrate

just how easyit is to turnbad scienceinto the big

headlinesbehind

diet fads.

Media MonitoringHealth Research


ber of people, and balance age and gender acrosstreatment groups. (We didnt bother.)

You might as well read tea leaves as try to interpretour results. Chocolate may be a weight loss accel-erator, or it could be the opposite. You cant eventrust the weight loss that our non-chocolate low-carb group experienced versus control. Who knowswhat the handful of people in the control groupwere eating? We didnt even ask them.

Luckily, scientists are getting wise to these prob-lems. Some journals are trying to phase out p valuesignificance testing altogether to nudge scientistsinto better habits. And almost no one takes studieswith fewer than 30 subjects seriously anymore. Ed-itors of reputable journals reject them out of handbefore sending them to peer reviewers. But there

blood protein levels, sleep quality, well-being, etcfrom 15 people. (One subject was dropped.) Thatstudy design is a recipe for false positives.

Think of the measurements as lottery tickets.Each one has a small chance of paying off in theform of a significant result that we can spin astory around and sell to the media. The more tick-ets you buy, the more likely you are to win. Wedidnt know exactly what would pan outtheheadline could have been that chocolate improvessleep or lowers blood pressurebut we knew ourchances of getting at least one statistically signifi-cant result were pretty good.

Whenever you hear that phrase, it means thatsome result has a small p value. The letter p seemsto have totemic power, but its just a way to gaugethe signal-to-noise ratio in the data. The conven-tional cutoff for being significant is 0.05, whichmeans that there is just a 5 percent chance that yourresult is a random fluctuation. The more lotterytickets, the better your chances of getting a falsepositive. So how many tickets do you need to buy?

P (winning) = 1 - (1 - p)nWith our 18 measurements, we had a 60 percent

chance of getting some significant result with p

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