The author does not comment on the motives of anyone. Although the author does mention that observational studies are “somewhat unreliable,” he does not suggest that they are unreliable because of the motives of people of people conducting the study or reporting on it.

The author’s not concerned with proving whether certain kinds of studies are reliable. So the quality of the evidence is irrelevant. The issue is whether small studies are more likely to have dramatic findings than large ones.

The first sentence claims that newspapers report only on studies with dramatic-sounding results. The second sentence claim stories about small studies are more frequent. These aren’t “similar” claims, but even if they are, the author does not mix up these two claims.

If the small studies are more common than the large ones, that provides an alternate explanation for why there are more news stories about small studies. The greater number of stories doesn’t have to be due to small studies’ having a higher rate of dramatic findings.

The first line says newspapers tend to report only on studies whose findings sound dramatic. Thus, (E)’s possibility isn’t true. Some studies’ findings sound dramatic. When newspapers choose what to write about, they choose the studies whose findings sound dramatic.