So Much Filler

With so much time dedicated to news, the media faces the choice of either saying the same thing over and over until people get sick of hearing it and it loses its edge, or trying to come up with enough extra items to fill the time available. The trend has been to accuse “cable news” of this use of filler (and other things, like using unverified sources), but it's found on the networks as well.

The practice of using filler goes beyond the cute animal pictures from the Internet and the feel-good, human-interest stories at the end of evening newscasts. This explains why every time I hear a newscaster start with the words, “A new study shows,” I tend to roll my eyes and tune it out. It is there to fill airtime and is either incomplete, inconclusive or both, featuring words like linked to and may cause and leads to or simply a rehash of common knowledge – often both.

A prime example turned up last week. It appeared not only on network news, but on CNN and Time.com. Napping is good for you.

 “In a new paper published in the journal Heart, researchers found that Swiss adults who took one or two daytime naps per week had a lower risk of heart problems, including heart disease and strokes, than non-nappers.” They followed about 3500 people between the ages of 35 and 75 for eight years, dividing them into four groups based on self-reporting: no naps, 1-2 times per week, 3-5 naps per week and about daily. 

They drew the conclusion by sorting that data by the 155 people in the study who developed heart problems. (Except their conclusion did not apply to people over 65.) Time also reports: “The study was limited by its observational design—which allows researchers to find only patterns, not cause and effect.” There, late in the article come the disclaimers. 

CNN's piece was a little more forthright at the beginning with the headline: "Daytime naps once or twice a week may be linked to a healthy heart.” Their expert doesn’t think changing habits to conform to the study findings will improve heart health. It may be more about overall choices behind those sleep habits. It is “far better to aim for regular good night's sleep and to follow usual lifestyle advice of good diets and decent activity levels.”

The whole story is very heavy on may be linked and no definite cause and effect, concluding with common advice on healthy lifestyles.

One wonders why it even considered newsworthy when the study itself gives the same vague information: “Nap frequency may help explain the discrepant findings [in other studies] regarding the association between napping and [cardiovascular disease] events." [Emphasis added.]

The researchers acknowledged limitations: reliance on self-reporting, the small number of subjects with CVD events (155) – especially in the 1-2 naps per week group, the possibility of underestimating morning napping due to the questionnaire’s wording and the possibility of residual confounding, which means that other factors not included in the study could have affected the results. Therefore, “these results should be interpreted with caution,” and generalizing conclusions beyond the Swiss population “is not guaranteed.” 

Looking into the details confirmed my suspicions. This study may have been of interest to other research groups working on napping-related questions, but it was very limited and of no value at all to the American public. Why then did 76 news outlets pick up the story with some providing more thorough and accurate information than others? – Filler!