In response to Tom Sheldon’s dire warnings of the dangers of preprints, “Preprints could promote confusion and distortion,” I’ve suggested that what really promotes confusion and distortion is credulous reporters failing to apply basic journalistic standards:
Peer review isn’t a magic wand that guarantees that only solid work gets published, and it isn’t a substitute for skepticism. Reporters have a responsibility to evaluate the evidence in a paper whether it is peer reviewed or not.
A couple of recent examples are relevant. First, the claim by mathematician Michael Atiyah to have proven the Riemann Hypothesis, an immensely important number theory problem related to the distribution of prime numbers. Remember, along with promoting “confusion and distortion,” Sheldon had warned that preprints could rob journalists of “time and breathing space,” pressuring them to rush to sensationalize bad science. Reporting on Atiyah’s claim shows what utter nonsense this is.