text_1: Treatment for Peanut Allergies Shows Promise
text_2: "This story on an experimental desensitization treatment for peanut allergies oversells the promise of the research and the importance of the studies. As the ratings below show, the story is poorly sourced and buries a key warning about the treatment. But its main problem is that the reporter lets the ""good news"" [that studies suggest a new regimen may be effective against a serious condition] linger far too long before getting to the ""bad news"" [the studies are unpublished, preliminary, small, brief and inconclusive]. The lede gets in trouble early when it says the treatment ""raises the possibility of a cure for this potentially life-threatening condition."" In the next paragraph it conveys a lead researcher’s assertion that a treatment ""may be developed in two or three years."" Only later come the reminders that these are small pilot studies. This is a common pattern in news reporting: Run with the promise, and let the caveats catch up by the end of the story. The result is that interested readers–in this case, parents of kids with peanut allergies–have their hopes raised and dashed within 350 words."