Hiring a PR agency to take control of the open access (OA) debate has backfired on the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and three of its most prominent members, John Wiley & Sons, Reed Elsevier and the American Chemical Society.
The scientific and information sectors have greeted with derision the news that the STM giants have engaged the services of “PR pitbull” Eric Dezenhall, a PR agent noted in the US for his work on behalf of disgraced Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling....
Defending its choice of PR agent, the AAP would only release a statement saying: “Not-for-profit and commercial publishers, as a group, have a responsibility to make the case on important issues regarding science and research.” Neither Elsevier nor Wiley would comment beyond the statement.
According to the Washington Post, an organisation’s recruitment of Dezenhall is an admission of defeat: “If word gets out, you stand to be seen as on the ropes and willing to do anything to win.” ...
Nature revealed that Dezenhall had advised the STM publishers to focus on a simple message of “public access equals government censorship”, and to “paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles”....
JISC consultant Fred Friend said: “It would be galling if publishers are using large sums of money derived from taxpayer-funded subscriptions to pay a media consultant to formulate messages against taxpayer interests. It is an extreme example of the lobbying publishers have been undertaking to thwart the clear wish of many members of the academic community to disseminate the results of publicly funded research more widely.” ...
Some publishers have come out in defence of the AAP.
Peter Banks of Banks Publishing in the US said: “For years, the OA camp has used media messaging, with its attending distortions and gross simplifications, to great effect.”
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/06/2007 03:37:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
