here;s the background:
http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/trying-to-get-the-bbc-to-link-to-journal-artibelow is their email back to me this afternoon, and my rambling hurried response.
it's odd that they don't get it, and i don't understand why they're so against linking to journal articles, when their arguments so obviously dont hold water.
Dear Dr Goldacre,
Many thanks for your message, and interest in the site.
The issue of linking to specific research papers, rather than the journals in which they appear is something with which we have long wrestled.
Linking to the journal gives the reader the chance to look at the source of the story, understand something of the wider context and get an idea of whether the research is peer reviewed. It also gives a chance to read associated information in editorials, etc, which often may be of interest. It is also a way for us to credit the journal.
We accept that linking to the specific research paper itself is often a desirable thing to do, and it is certainly something we will try to do more of in future. However, we don't believe that it is something we can do on every occasion - for instance many papers are available on the web via subscription only, while others give only an Abstract summary. In these instances, the vast majority of our readers would not be able to read the full papers, without paying for access, even if we provided the relevant link.
In addition, we do have finite resources, and our view is that our top priority should always be to provide authoratitive, accurate and attractive reportage. We have to balance that against the desirability of providing a link on a story which is likely to be of use only to a small number of our readers.
We have sent out new guidelines to reporting staff summarising our position, and stressing that linking to individual papers is something they should consider as an option on each story.
My contact details are not for publication elsewhere.
Kind regards,
Richard Warry Assistant editor, Specialist journalism BBC News website Hi Richard,
thanks for getting back to me. I think that BBC journalists are alone in believing that linking to a journal homepage is actively preferable to linking directly to the academic paper or press release. I'm keen to try and understand why, since you disagree with every single reader, librarian, blogger and academic I've spoken to, or had comments from, so I hope you're amenable to changing your mind!
Every problem you describe with linking to a journal article (paywall for full text etc) is the same for linking to the journal itself.
Furthermore, abstracts are often very sufficient to get a deeper understanding of the topic, decide whether the academic article has been fairly represented in the news article, and decide whether it is worth seeking out in a library for those who are interested: anyone in the UK can get access to these academic articles for free, if they wish, by going to the right library. I'd be happy to right a guide for readers if you thought that might be useful.
Alongside this there are the many serious problems raised by linking to university homepages (eg
glasgow.ac.uk) and journal homepages, instead of specific research. They leave it completely ambiguous as to what piece of research was being described, often there is insufficient information in the news article to identify it, often time has passed and it is unclear what issue of the journal someone should be looking in (so I don't really understand your suggestion that linking to journals is helpful in finding surrounding editorials, that would be understandable if you linked to specific issues, but not to journals).
The end result is that the links add nothing. I mean it when I say the ongoing active commitment to these practises is baffling to those outside the BBC. It makes absolute sense to link to the press release and the abstract of the academic journal, or to link to nothing. Linking to the frontpage of the journal adds nothing, it gives no useful information (since the name of the journal is in the text of the news article anyway) and it serves only to give the BBC the illusion of having provided a useful link, when in reality they've done no such thing.
Is there anyone I can come in and talk to about this? There is no doubt that this is something where there is a huge groundswell of popular concern, I've never had that many comments on my secondary posterous blog, and all so overwhelmingly in favour of the BBC improving its links policy.
Linking to the specific journal article is useful to
everybody, and linking to the journal homepage is useful to
nobody. Ben
dr ben goldacre
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