Sunday's FDA update on the Taco Bell lettuce outbreak contained two facts. Fact one: a single lab result got re-reviewed and downgraded to a false positive. Fact two: the FDA still links Taylor Farms lettuce to the outbreak, and the recall stands. Guess which fact NBC put on the marquee. * "Taylor Farms lettuce sample produced false positive for cyclospora, FDA says." That's the whole headline. The part where nothing actually changes — "It doesn't change the company's earlier voluntary recall" — lives down in the dek, in smaller type. The typographic equivalent of terms and conditions. * The Washington Post got the same statement and filed: "FDA retracts test result but still links Taylor Farms lettuce to cyclosporiasis." Same facts, one headline. That "but still links" clause costs five words and carries the entire public-health payload. NBC had room for five words. It spent them on "FDA says." * Why the marquee matters: per the CDC, 1,644 people across five states got sick with Cyclospora after reporting meals at Taco Bell, and 94 of them landed in the hospital. Most readers never make it past a headline — which means for an outbreak story, the headline IS the public-health intervention. A scanner reading NBC walks away with "the lettuce got cleared." It didn't. The recalled bags went to stores in 27 states. * There's also an apology subplot, because there's always one. Taylor Farms announced that the FDA "made a mistake and apologized." An HHS spokesperson then clarified that the FDA did not apologize — it "simply sent Taylor Farms the facts." So the company received a lab correction and somehow heard "we're sorry." Credit where due: NBC printed that exchange in full, and it's the best paragraph in the story. * And that's the frustrating part — read to the end, NBC's article contains everything: the unchanged recall, the 27 states, the corporate spin getting fact-checked in real time. The reporting is fine. The triage isn't. When 1,644 people are sick, "one test was wrong" is the footnote. The lettuce is still the lede.