More and more, it seems that news organizations keep reporting scientific discoveries as facts vs. reporting them as the actual guesses they are. Take this headline and first paragraph of a Reuters story on CNN.com:

New exoplanet a hot ‘ice giant’ WASHINGTON (Reuters) — An odd planet the size of Neptune, made mostly of hot, solid water, has been discovered not far from Earth and offers evidence that other planets may be covered with oceans, European astronomers reported Wednesday.

Really? You have to read most of the article to get to this:

We are not absolutely sure that it’s water, but with this kind of density and if you take the materials that usually make a planet, it is very typical of water planets,” Pont said.

I would like Mr. Pont to please list the typical water planets he is referencing with such certainty. Later on in the Reuters article:

Just last month members of the same team said they had found the most Earth-like planet yet outside our solar system, with balmy temperatures and orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581.

Again, really? Balmy temperatures? Let’s check the actual AP article on the “Earth-like” planet orbiting Gilese 581.

Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what’s in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it’s too thick that could make the planet’s surface temperature too hot, Mayor said.
However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.

In reality, these planets can be made out of M&M’s and it wouldn’t matter — they’re trillions of miles away. The immediate danger, however, is that journalists continue to give scientists a free pass for their ridiculous comments and write articles of dubious value for the sole purpose of generating content that people will read. If the writers of these two articles actually wrote about the facts, the stories would be so boring that nobody would read them.