Mediawatch One weird trick for getting uncritical media coverage
Most publications would never dream of running advertising for free, or publishing a highly ideological press release verbatim, but they may do so if the same information is presented in the form of research or study results.
Anyone logging into 1News.co.nz from their home office last weekend would have received some disturbing news about their apparently deteriorating bodies.
Under the headline 'Research reveals what remote workers could look like in the future', the site ran a series of pictures of a digitally-generated model dubbed 'Anna', along with a story describing her as a vision of what working from home could do to people by the year 2100.
As it turns out, not commuting into the office is more harmful than you might have thought.
" is a grotesque figure, with claw hands, swollen limbs, red eyes and a hunched back, due to consistent use of laptops and smartphones, poor posture and an unhealthy diet," said 1News.
Terrible news, and even worse that this projection was purportedly based on research.
Except, as it turns out, it wasn't.
A cursory glance at this story's origins shows Anna was actually invented seemingly out of whole cloth by the Scottish company Furniture At Work UK - hardly a disinterested party when it comes to the working from home debate.
It seems rather than robust research, the story was a barely disguised ad for office furniture.
In fact, the link to the Furniture at Work UK blog introducing Anna later redirected to a page selling ergonomic desk chairs after it started being included in news stories. Good web traffic if you can get it.
1News eventually deleted its story.
But it was far from alone in spreading Anna across the internet.
Stuff also ran a story on Furniture At Work UK's invention with the headline 'Remote worker of the future could look like this, say researchers'.
They were following in the footsteps of a host of international outlets, including The Daily Mail and The New York Post.
It's not the first time Furniture At Work UK has employed this PR trick to great success.
In March, it convinced The Daily Mail to run a story on its similarly made-up vision of what offices could look like in the year 2050.
It's also not the only entity using dicey 'research' or so-called 'study results' to garner uncritical media coverage.
In May, 1News reported on a study which it said "cemented" the theory that garlic can help treat the flu or even Covid-19.
As it turns out the non-peer reviewed study it was citing was commissioned by the lobby group for Australia's garlic producers…