But do not get me wrong here. I never implied that media companies have been played the fool. They are absolutely complicit in this — which is my core point. In my daily life, I deal with media companies that have constructed publishing systems driven by algorithms that factor in an anticipated revenue-per-page in terms of Google AdWords keyword sell-through, bid rates, syndication rates, and past histories of story popularities.

Change “blood pressure” in your story title to “cholesterol”, and revenues will predictably increase 37%. That sort of thing. This financial projection drives what stories are written and how they are written. This is all going on today. And the archives of the likes of digg and blogging networks are being pumped with the same stories over and over again because they have proven to provide a predictable, steady income (see: eHow, for example). Media consumers are sold before the story even comes together.

In the case of the New York Times piece cited up top, there wasn’t even any new news in the story: it’s simply a classic rehash of old, readership-proven stories. Undoubtedly, the health editor approved the rehash because they all knew in advance of the ready readership, e-mailing, and blogging they’d get from the recycled material.

What we have is a society that still eagerly looks to the media as a source of scientific or health knowledge. When in reality, the choice of health stories about coffee are the equivalent of the fluff-piece animal stories that fill evening TV newscasts like clockwork. To honestly inform the public that there really is no bogeyman nor faith healer in your coffee cup would kill the golden goose.

And it’s not just the easy target of the “big, bad” media companies. The medical research community is just as complicit in this. The media-consuming public needs to wise up and stop jumping to life-altering decisions on the basis of this medical infotainment.