Prevention is better than cure when it comes to the weight of ill-informed public opinion resulting from the misreporting of science by the media (Nature 468, 7; 2010).

Take the story of a hippopotamus coming round unexpectedly in an African national park after incomplete delivery of an immobilizer drug cocktail by a faulty dart. The animal had to be shot after attacking the attending researchers.

News of the killing spread rapidly (see http://go.nature.com/upkcu7), the story becoming more sensational with each rewriting (see http://go.nature.com/rhhx7c). It prompted a public outcry and led some people to question why the research was being performed in the first place.

Not reported was that the new drug cocktail had until then been used with 100% success on more than 20 hippos, and that previously trialled immobilization drugs had killed a quarter of the hippos tested. The real news is that this cocktail represents a breakthrough in the management and conservation of the species.