[A2k] Journal publishers lock horns with free-information movement

[Tim Hubbard]

Nature 445, 347 (25 January 2007)

Author: Jim Giles

PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access

Journal publishers lock horns with free-information movement.

The author of Nail 'Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on
Celebrities and Businesses is not the kind of figure normally
associated with the relatively sedate world of scientific publishing.
Besides writing the odd novel, Eric Dezenhall has made a name for
himself helping companies and celebrities protect their reputations,
working for example with Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron chief now
serving a 24-year jail term for fraud.

Although Dezenhall declines to comment on Skilling and his other
clients, his firm, Dezenhall Resources, was also reported by Business
Week to have used money from oil giant ExxonMobil to criticize the
environmental group Greenpeace. "He's the pit bull of public
relations," says Kevin McCauley, an editor at the magazine O'Dwyer's
PR Report.

Now, Nature has learned, a group of big scientific publishers has
hired the pit bull to take on the free-information movement, which
campaigns for scientific results to be made freely available. Some
traditional journals, which depend on subscription charges, say that
open-access journals and public databases of scientific papers such
as the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) PubMed Central,
threaten their livelihoods.

 From e-mails passed to Nature, it seems Dezenhall spoke to employees
from Elsevier, Wiley and the American Chemical Society at a meeting
arranged last July by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). A
follow-up message in which Dezenhall suggests a strategy for the
publishers provides some insight into the approach they are
considering taking.

The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as
"Public access equals government censorship". He hinted that the
publishers should attempt to equate traditional publishing models
with peer review, and "paint a picture of what the world would look
like without peer-reviewed articles".

Dezenhall also recommended joining forces with groups that may be
ideologically opposed to government-mandated projects such as PubMed
Central, including organizations that have angered scientists. One
suggestion was the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative
think-tank based in Washington DC, which has used oil-industry money
to promote sceptical views on climate change. Dezenhall estimated his
fee for the campaign at $300,000-500,000.

In an enthusiastic e-mail sent to colleagues after the meeting, Susan
Spilka, Wiley's director of corporate communications, said Dezenhall
explained that publishers had acted too defensively on the
free-information issue and worried too much about making precise
statements. Dezenhall noted that if the other side is on the
defensive, it doesn't matter if they can discredit your statements,
she added: "Media messaging is not the same as intellectual debate.

Officials at the AAP would not comment to Nature on the details of
their work with Dezenhall, or the money involved, but acknowledged
that they had met him and subsequently contracted his firm to work on
the issue.

"We're like any firm under siege," says Barbara Meredith, a
vice-president at the organization. "It's common to hire a PR firm
when you're under siege." She says the AAP needs to counter messages
from groups such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS), an
open-access publisher and prominent advocate of free access to
information. PLoS's publicity budget stretches to television
advertisements produced by North Woods Advertising of Minneapolis, a
firm best known for its role in the unexpected election of former
professional wrestler Jesse Ventura to the governorship of Minnesota.

The publishers' link with Dezenhall reflects how seriously they are
taking recent developments on access to information. Minutes of a
2006 AAP meeting sent to Nature show that particular attention is
being paid to PubMed Central. Since 2005, the NIH has asked all
researchers that it funds to send copies of accepted papers to the
archive, but only a small percentage actually do. Congress is
expected to consider a bill later this year that would make
submission compulsory.

Brian Crawford, a senior vice-president at the American Chemical
Society and a member of the AAP executive chair, says that
Dezenhall's suggestions have been refined and that the publishers
have not to his knowledge sought to work with the Competitive
Enterprise Institute. On the censorship message, he adds: "When any
government or funding agency houses and disseminates for public
consumption only the work it itself funds, that constitutes a form of
selection and self-promotion of that entity's interests."


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Dr Tim Hubbard                      email: th@sanger.ac.uk
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute     Tel (direct): +44 1223 496886
Wellcome Trust Genome Campus        Tel (switch): +44 1223 834244
Hinxton                             Fax: +44 1223 496802
Cambridgeshire. CB10 1SA.           URL: http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Users/th
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