Trying to get the BBC to link to journal articles

- Edit
- Delete
- Tags
- Autopost
Trying to get the BBC to link to journal articles

you might find this interesting, i'm trying (hard) in this email trail and elsewhere to persuade the BBC to give meaningful weblinks in their online science and health articles, at the moment they link to journal homepages, and university homepages, which are absurdly uninformative and unhelpful.

leave a comment below, if you like, so the BBC wonks can see i'm not a crazed pedant, and i'll let you know if i ever get anything back from them. do also leave a note if you've raised this with the BBC and had an unsatisfactory response.
b

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Ben Goldacre <bengoldacre@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 2:52 PM
Subject: Re: your article about the research in B J Psychol
To: Jane Ashley
Cc: Su Maskell < Melanie Fanstone <

Hi
thanks for getting back to me.
It is very rare for a journal article URL to change, and if it did, then the journal URL itself (which you do use, although it does not really help a great deal in finding the information) would also change.
However it does happen occasionally, and this is why the DOI Digital Object Identifier system was invented. You can create a DOI in about 5 seconds using this page:
http://www.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery/
Alternatively for medical stories you can link to the pubmed page, which I'm sure you know is the searchable database of all medical journals.
I really think a reference to the original research is important, and a link to the journal page does so little that I think it only gives the misleading appearance of giving useful resources, but without any useful information (the text always contains the journal name) and is therefore worse than nothing.
It's very important that the public are able to get access to information, especially since media reports - for many structural reasons - can be light on information, or even contain errors.
Can I ask you to reconsider linking to the journal article, or perhaps the press release, since in reality this will often be the primary source for the journalist?
I'd be happy to come in and talk to anyone involved in this decision, or set out the arguments directly to them in writing. I also think the policy of linking to eg www.glasgow.ac.uk when talking about research by one of the thousands of academics working in Glasgow is equally unhelpful and silly.

Ben

dr ben goldacre
ben@goldacre.net
http://www.badscience.net/
READ CAREFULLY. By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your
employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from
any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service,
shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure,
non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have
entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and
assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and
privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release
me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. If you
are anything other than a friend or an institutional professional colleague and
you are writing to me about Bad Science stuff then it is reasonable to assume
that I might quote our discussion in my writing, usually anonymously.

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Jane Ashley < wrote:

Hi Ben

Thanks for your message. You are right - it is our policy to link to the jounal rather than the article itself. This is because sometimes links to articles don't work or change, and sometimes the journals need people to register or pay.

If you want to take it up, the managers of my department are Su Maskell and Melanie Fanstone, who I have copied in.

Thanks for contacting us.

Regards

Jane Ashley

Jane Ashley
Health team
BBC News website

From: Ben Goldacre [mailto:bengoldacre@gmail.com]
Sent: 15 February 2010 16:57
To: Jane Ashley
Subject: your article about the research in B J Psychol

hi
i dont understand why you linked to the B J Psychol academic journal's front page, instead of the article itself (or the press release)?
http://bpsoc.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpsoc/bjp/2010/00000101/00000001/art00010
this seems to be BBC policy, but it makes no sense at all, is there someone i could talk to about this?
thanks,
ben
dr ben goldacre
ben@goldacre.net
http://www.badscience.net/
READ CAREFULLY. By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your
employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from
any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service,
shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure,
non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have
entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and
assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and
privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release
me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. If you
are anything other than a friend or an institutional professional colleague and
you are writing to me about Bad Science stuff then it is reasonable to assume
that I might quote our discussion in my writing, usually anonymously.

http://www.bbc.co.uk
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system.
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately.
Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received.
Further communication will signify your consent to this.

Edit 3.07

just had this

Su Maskell
to me

show details 3:07 PM (0 minutes ago)

Hi Ben

I will talk to the Online editors about this and how they choose the links which are put up.

I'm not aware of it being an issue but now you have raised it I will look into it.

Cheers

Su

Su Maskell
- 23 February 2010
- Views
- Permalink
- Tweet
over 2 years ago treaclemine responded:

Long overdue - many thanks for this!

over 2 years ago Chris Leonard responded:

Hallelujah - I've raised this with them before and got fobbed off with various excuses. Nice to see it has at least been escalated. Now to keep the pressure on...

over 2 years ago bunster responded:

definitely would be of use. I've lost count of the number of times I've clicked on a link only to spend ages trawling through a journal for the relevant paper. Mind you the BBC also thinks Fife-shire is a place...

over 2 years ago Heather Sullivan responded:

I would definitely like to see the actual study/article/press release linked rather than a general link to a university or journal homepage. They should be required to cite their sources when writing factual articles just like everyone else. That is, if they want to be trusted as a news source.

over 2 years ago Simon Cockell responded:

Good luck, don't like your chances frankly. Most articles will have a DOI anyway, which doesn't change (by definition) so using a DOI resolving service will always point to the correct location of the article, e.g. http://dx.doi.org/

over 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

I agree with Dr Goldacre. Journals go to great pains not to have their links go out of date - many use DOIs already - and all make abstract pages available free even when the content itself is behind paywalls. If linking to the specific page is bad, linking to a university's homepage or a journal's is worse than useless...

over 2 years ago Martyn McFarquhar responded:

This is an excellent idea. It amazes me how journalists never see any issue in not properly referencing their sources, particularly when writing a science article! This is long overdue, keep up the good work Ben.

over 2 years ago Jo Wood responded:

I've tried the same, Ben, to no avail. j

over 2 years ago Nicky responded:

Thank you - it drives me mental trying to find out details about interesting stories! It takes ages to find the papers... hope they sort it out!

over 2 years ago Matt B responded:

Good work - have often thought this and never got round to it...

over 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

It would definitely help and save me some time when they are work related articles!

over 2 years ago James Buchanan responded:

Excellent idea. I've lost count of the number of times I've read a story (usually health related, usually at midnight on a Sunday after embargoes have been lifted) and then had to spend a frustrating few minutes trying to find the article itself. I work in academia so I imagine people not used to journals/pubmed etc will find this process even more unhelpful.

over 2 years ago jamougha responded:

"...or even contain errors."
Somehow I doubt they see this as a reason to let people fact-check them.

over 2 years ago Liz responded:

If they gave a link to the actual study, it would also be clear when they were talking about an already-published article, and when they are regurgitating the press release about a study which is currently unpublished. (Eg, this news article about colon cancer http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8522301.stm links to Science Translational Medicine, except there's no sign of the study on the website, and you have to go and find the AAAS press release http://news.aaas.org/2010/0218personalizing-cancer-creating-biomarkers-from-tumor-dna.shtml to find out it's in the next issue. )

over 2 years ago Robert Pettifer responded:

I got a similar response a few weeks ago where they'd managed to link to the hompage of a completely different journal. My reply also said that lots of the studies they mentioned were embargoed so they often were not sure of the correct url (presumably as they are often just slighly rewritten PR bullshit). Either way the DoI would still work.

over 2 years ago Adam Shulman responded:

Hi Ben
It's long been a source of puzzlement that the BBC doesn't link directly to peer-reviewed and other relevant articles. I strongly support your 'campaign of pedantry'! Go on Beeb, do the decent thing...
Adam

over 2 years ago Anne Marie Cunningham responded:

BBC Education news also don't link to the source of original research. If they did then perhaps it would make it easier for us to spot when there are very obvious weaknesses in research methodology and interpretation. Here is a link to a blog post I wrote last year on some very dodgy reserach that received widespread coverage.
http://wishfulthinkinginmedicaleducation.blogspot.com/2009/09/tech-addiction-harms-learning-really.html

over 2 years ago dr_andy_russell (Twitter) responded:

If it's a story based on a research paper then the link needs to go to that paper. If the link changes, so what? A dead link is as useful as a link to journal home page.

over 2 years ago andrewnorfolk (Twitter) responded:

This is a pet hate of mine too, "A recent paper" oh yeah?

over 2 years ago Baz responded:

It would be such a good move if the beeb fixed this. Right now I just ignore their 'see also' links as utterly useless, and google the name of any researcher mentioned in the article.

over 2 years ago Dr Trevor Lever responded:

Ben - your suggestion is very reasonable and I think the defense from the bbc against it is pretty flimsy. With web / tv / radio - I am fed up of the "research has shown...", "scientists say..."quotes and then having to spend time tracking down the original paper. This equally applies to CAT reference "quotes" on the bbc which are often not peer-reviewed studies at all.

over 2 years ago Helen Cooper responded:

It's quite simple, if the research is published or about to be published then a full reference should be included, preferably with a DOI/URL.
If it comes from a press release then it should be referenced as such and a link included.
Information from unreferenced sources isn't worth the paper it's printed on... or maybe that should be the pixels it extinguishes.

over 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

Full support from me - there is no excuse for not linking to the article. The argument regarding linking to the front page because users will have to pay is daft: as you rightly say, you'll generally get the abstract and very often the references etc.
As others point out, this should be a generaly policy over all subject areas.
Facebook campaign?! The BBC seem to love reporting on those.

over 2 years ago michael power responded:

It boggles the mind that a bureacratic health and safety attitude to clicking on a link values a miniscual risk of getting a missing page error more highly than the certainty of irritating every user by making them go into cognitive overload trying to find the article they thought was being linked to.
ben, I trust you will be less shouty and more succesful than me with the BBC.

over 2 years ago David Carey responded:

I sincerely hope this escalation gets the right result.
So many times I've been directed to a uni or journal homepage and found I have no recollection of the author's name and have to trawl through dozens or even hundreds of articles.
Establishing a direct link to a reference requires little effort but provides so much legitimacy to the journo's report.
Good luck.

over 2 years ago Fergus Gallagher responded:

One problem with DOI/CROSSREF is that it can take a while for the DOI to become live via the resolver at http://dx.doi.org. This is a big problem for "hot new" articles which would presumably be why they're covered by the BBC in the first place ("A paper published by Nature today...")

over 2 years ago Thaddaeus Frogley responded:

I agree, a direct link to article would be much more useful.

over 2 years ago dahaigh (Twitter) responded:

The BBC may be worried about institutions not receiving full credit; it should be made clear to them that article abstracts list authors with their associated institutions.

over 2 years ago Louise Hull responded:

This is such a simple change that would save people masses of time trying to trace the original article that the news story refers to. Trawling through institutional websites or googling author's names is not my idea of fun when a direct link would be a very simple addition.
Their point about some articles not being freely accessible in full text is fair, but if someone wants to read it then they would have the option of buying direct from publisher or having the full citation at least, so they can order it from their library.

over 2 years ago Dan Lockton responded:

Fantastic initiative Ben, will be great if they do take up your suggestion.
Would be wonderful if in the longer term, it helped casual readers to become more familiar with academic literature and research, and see it as something possible to engage with and understand rather than completely unapproachable. More likely to happen with open-access papers, though, which will still be the minority unfortunately.

over 2 years ago SJG99 (Twitter) responded:

Good idea - the abstract and full reference details are useful whether the complete article is free of charge or not.

over 2 years ago helenlynn (Twitter) responded:

I'm delighted to see you've taken this up with the BBC. I've often been frustrated at how tedious it is to find the paper on which a BBC News story is based. I do hope they take heed.

over 2 years ago lovelycode responded:

Thanks for pushing the BBC on this Ben. I've long wished the BBC would cite their sources, and never understood why they don't. How is a specific link that might break worse than no link at all?!

over 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

Good luck Ben you have my support, it would make life much easier to find the relevant articles.

over 2 years ago jdc325 responded:

I raised this issue with them in March last year and the BBC News website's Health Editor at the time told me that, as the site is "intended for lay readers", it is "editorial policy not to give specific references to pieces in journals, as is the practice in national newspapers."
I responded by writing that "I still feel it would be helpful (even to lay readers such as myself) if details such as the author's name were given, as this makes it easier to search for the paper(s) that a news story is based on. A proper reference/link for the paper in question would be even better."
Their final email to me included this: "I take your point regarding precise citations - this has been a subject of some discussion here in the past, and doubtless needs to be again."

over 2 years ago Anne Marie Cunningham responded:

Behind the Headlines shows how this can be done for a lay audience. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/02February/Pages/Top-IVF-doctor-ICSI-talk.aspx

It is very hard to understand any justification for not doing this in digital media.

over 2 years ago Colin responded:

Well done Ben! As ever, you are our only voice in the dead tree media!

over 2 years ago Carol Anne Meyer responded:

CrossRef would be very interested in supporting news organizations such as the BBC be looking up DOIs for articles. Please feel free to contact me if I can help.

over 2 years ago Paul Bradshaw responded:

Linking to the actual article, even if behind a paywall, still tells you which journal it came from, so I don't understand why they prioritise the journal homepage. For users with academic accounts they can click through, others can choose to pay or to search elsewhere using the abstract (sometimes there will be another version online)
There's really no excuse.

over 2 years ago csrster responded:

I think resistance to this idea is because journalists see it as an implicit criticism of their work - ie that it boils down to "I don't trust your reporting of this research so I'm going to read the original paper myself". It's just possible that in some cases that suspicion may be justified.

about 2 years ago www.alternative-viagra.org responded:

Love the blog post, totally informative

about 2 years ago Anne Marie Cunningham liked this post.

about 2 years ago Colin Brown responded:

Fergus Gallagher is correct about the DOI delay, most articles being reported on are "hot" and their DOI will not have been registered.
However, publishers are aware of these issues and have started to put in re-directs when they change their websites URL's, therefore direct URL's shouild be less problematic in the future

about 2 years ago Pete responded:

I've long thought that scientific articles should at least provide complete references, and with online journals now so prevalent there really is no excuse for not linking directly to the paper. Hell all journalism should provide complete references, but that's our fault for not holding them to higher standards.
Anyone with more than 2 years of a technical degree can tell good research from bad in any field, irrespective of where their specialism lies, and many people without this sort of training can tell anyway just from common sense. Linking directly gives people extra information with which to make judgements and means they arn't just being spoon-fed. It also means that people that are so inclined can find out more with greater ease.

about 2 years ago Anne Marie Cunningham responded:

looks like there may be action by the BBC on this http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2010/03/19/the-bbc-and-linking-part-3-the-bbc...

about 2 years ago Brian Paphopoulis responded:

Thanks for this! I've emailed before about this issue (must have been 2 years ago) and was fobbed off by an excuse that people wouldn't have access to the full paper in most cases. But, as you pointed out - a link to the university page or journal homepage is worse than nothing. I'd rather see the paper abstract than nothing at all

about 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

Absolutely behind you in this one. Access to the original- reports or media report- is essential, if we are to be given the dignity and respect as thinking people. The more the BBC responds like this, the more they will see it as a problem rather than the basic, 'should-have-been-done-in-the-first-place' referencing we expect of students!

almost 2 years ago Din Freebies responded:

This is an excellent idea. It amazes me how journalists never see any issue in not properly referencing their sources, particularly when writing a science article! This is long overdue, keep up the good work Ben.

almost 2 years ago Clarissa responded:

ok, good luck with this but I wouldn't count on the BBC doing the right thing with this, or ever for that matter.

almost 2 years ago Inbound Links responded:

Fergus Gallagher is correct about the DOI delay, most articles being reported on are "hot" and their DOI will not have been registered. However, publishers are aware of these issues and have started to put in re-directs when they change their websites URL's, therefore direct URL's shouild be less problematic in the future

over 1 year ago Ewan Gillies responded:

Yes this is certainly true the paid journalists see it as competition

over 1 year ago Andy Williamson responded:

Well done - and thanks for making this happen: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/oct/08/bbc-link-guidelines

about 1 year ago Roger liked this post.

about 1 year ago caro aprisio liked this post.

about 1 year ago resultat bac liked this post.

about 1 year ago resultat bep liked this post.

about 1 year ago Catherine liked this post.

about 1 year ago Richard liked this post.

about 1 year ago Robert liked this post.

12 months ago Order Checks responded:

This post is excellent and have shared great content here. Thanks for sharing as this is certainly true the paid journalists see it as competition

10 months ago pkvisit (Twitter) responded:

This is trustworthy website..:) Peoples go to other blogs and basically write their own post in form of a comment about the content of the post they have read. Amazing! Also remember, a lot of bloggers will read your great comment and then have a look at your own blog or ask you if you would like to guest post. Commenting is a great way to get to know people.

10 months ago Syed Mazhar Shah (Facebook) responded:

Well, I am so excited that I have found this your post because I have been searching for some information about it almost three hours. You helped me a lot indeed and reading this your article I have found many new and useful information about this subject.
easy going room mate

8 months ago Faisal Shah (Facebook) responded:

Hi
The BBC, is one of better website and there are so many people like this website because there are so many good knowledge in this site.
Faisal Shah
Error 193 0xc1

8 months ago Farrukh Bilal (Facebook) responded:

Great information related to the BBC site this is very useful for all the visitors and specially for me also because i am searching this kind of information since 2 weeks ago but, what i want to find i found in your site.
Really thanks for sharing this great information

5 months ago Anna Longreen liked this post.

5 months ago Translation Services liked this post.

3 months ago drimbabas (Twitter) responded:

Whether you power be afraid along with add comment on online roulette, the live casino can possibly aid you in abundance of videopoker online

2 months ago VictoriayaPolya (Twitter) responded:

READ CAREFULLY. By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your
employer, to release me from all acheter cialis obligations and waivers arising from
any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service,
shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure,
non-compete and acceptable use

2 months ago VictoriayaPolya (Twitter) responded:

You further represent that you have the authority to release
me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. If you
are anything other than a friend or an institutional professional colleague and
you are writing to me about Bad levitra Science stuff then it is reasonable to assume
that I might quote our discussion in my writing, usually anonymously.

about 1 month ago darrymor (Twitter) responded:

There's no need to do Phentermine anything if you're using one of our kamagra fast standard themes as the new Posterous Bar will replace the current one. If you have a customized theme, check out this help Vardenafil article to set up the new Posterous Bar.
Ben Goldacre's Space

I like stats. I'm a doctor. I write about dodgy scientific claims in my spare time.
This isn't my main blog. Find me here:
Blog:
www.badscience.net/
Book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/?tag=bs0b-21
Tweet:
www.twitter.com/bengoldacre
TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html

bengoldacre - secondary blog

Trying to get the BBC to link to journal articles

Su Maskell

Ben Goldacre's Space

About Ben Goldacre

Archive

Follow Me