A Wall Street Journal blog report published yesterday claims that, in just under half of organzations, the lowest performing employees are also the most engaged. The article, by Lauren Weber, prompted responses like this one from NBC’s Martha C. White: “These findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom that those who contribute more to their employer’s success are the most engaged with their jobs.”

It’s not hard to imagine a company leader reading the reports of the Leadership IQ survey and demanding of his HR director, “Tell me again why we’re investing so much in building our population of engaged employees?” Workplace engagement has a target on its back. And it’s all thanks to shoddy reporting.

The Leadership IQ study reported that, at 42% of more than 200 companies included in the study, the employees who goof off as much as they can get away with think they’re better at their jobs than they actually are. They also like working for the company. Hence, the media reports conclude, the workers with the lowest productivity are also the most engaged.

If it were true, it would be a cause for outrage. But liking your job and thinking you’re good at it is not the definition of engagement. An engaged employee is one who acts in a manner that advances the company’s interests and is inclined to give discretionary effort to the organization. This is what Gallup’s Q11 and other engagement studies are determined to surface, not how much an employee likes his job or how good at it he thinks he is.

Genuine engagement research also doesn’t involve employees self-reporting on the quality of their work. Far more subtle questions are designed to surface engagement without directly asking an employee, “Dude, are you engaged?” (Who wouldn’t say, “Me? I’m as engaged as a Ferrari in fifth gear!”) Gallup—which kicked off the whole engagement industry—says there are four elements of engagement:

It’s worth noting that, in the other 58% of companies surveyed, the highest-performing employees were also the most “engaged” (under the definition employed by Leadership IQ, for whom engagement is a core business, according to their website).

But my issue isn’t with Leadership IQ as much as it is with the journalistic outlets that reported on the survey results. In the rush to publish as much content as fast as possible, fact-checking seems to have been abandoned; they are reporting results without any critical examination. It would have taken the authors of the WSJ and NBC reports mere moments to find an accepted, accurate definition of engagement. Had they taken the time, they might have produced different articles than the press releases they ultimately delivered.

If you’re looking for evidence that genuine engagement is worth developing in your organization, look no farther than these 28 studies that correlate engagement to better service, sales, quality, safety, retention, and sales/profit/total shareholder returns.