The Scienceblogs saga continues to rumble on, with more people quitting – the departure of Bora Zivkovic making perhaps the biggest ripples in this latest group – and now PZ Myers going on strike (see some discussion in the comments here).
[Note added: As I was finishing off this post, I saw one of my favourite Sb bloggers, Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata, is going too. That only leaves Orac, of the Sb-ers I read regularly, still blogging at Sb]
Posts talking about the Sb saga have even been appearing here at NN, though I think most people around here are a bit wary of talking about Sb too much (remember what happened the last time).
Anyway, there has been so much discussion of the current and ongoing Sb saga in the blogosphere, including the lengthy posts that the departing bloggers have penned giving their personal reasons for leaving (e.g. from dual ex-Sb/NN resident GrrlScientist) that it was rather a surprise to see this in the Guardian Science online yesterday, written by Oregon-based freelancer David Appell:————————————————————————————————————————————
PepsiCo and the shame of the bloggerati
A real chance to call the corporation to account was missed when Food Frontiers was forced out of Scienceblog
“This month Seed magazine decided to introduce a new blog to its Scienceblog department, called Food Frontiers. It was sponsored by PepsiCo and was to be written by their scientists. Less than a day later Seed shut the blog down – before a word of substance had been posted – because of a backlash from its readers and other Sciencebloggers.
That’s how easy it is for the bloggerati to hound out undesirable opinions. This is a shameful response from nearly all parties involved. Suppression of free speech is never acceptable, no matter who is being censored or who is calling for it. That prominent science writers aided such suppression is even more problematic – and, in my opinion, even cowardly.”
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Reaction on Twitter to Appell’s piece was, er, somewhat incredulous, with many commenting that it added nothing to the much more in-depth discussion that had already gone on on Sb (especially) and elsewhere. The comments thread after Appell’s article was also mostly negative. Here is my own little contribution:
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ACElliott
“Much too simplistic.
Apart from what GCday correctly states about opening the Sb bloggers to the “shill” accusation, a major issue was that Sb did this completely without warning, and without in any way “marking” the PepsiCo blog as “Advertorial” (or similar). It was also clearly the last straw for many of the Sb bloggers, building on long-standing gripes about lack of tech support and other stuff.
Speaking as the editor of a (admittedly non-retail) science magazine, I am astonished the Sb management hadn’t consulted the bloggers first, as in:
“Under what circumstances and safeguards would a paid-for blog written by PepsiCo scientists here be acceptable?”
I would suggest that if they had done that the exodus would likely have been far smaller. But blind-siding ALL their contributors at a stroke, and ignoring (or not knowing) established conventions of (US) journalism ethics about separating and marking journalistic and advertorial content, would leave anyone wondering if Sb have a clue.
Finally, as several people have said here, Pepsi have a similar blog on their own site; and there is also nothing to stop their scientists, individually or collectively, setting up on WordPress, or Blogger, or some other network. Which is what everyone else does.”
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And today a more serious response appeared in the Guardian, penned by one of the Sb émigrés, David Dobbs of Neuron Culture.
Anyway, I think the Interwebz way to say it is that Appell’s piece has been well and truly “pwned”. But one thing which I did find rather funny was that the Graun’s own contributors, and even Guardian science correspondent Alok Jha, seemed rather bemused by the appearance and tone of Appell’s offering. Here is Adam Rutherford:——————————————————————————————————————————-
Adam Rutherford
“I don’t think the bloggers hounded Food Frontiers out. They disagreed and then left to write somewhere else. That seems to me to be perfectly reasonable and democratic protest: to chose not to share a forum with something they disagree with or do not wish to be associated with. [Sb publisher] Seed and [Seed CEO] Adam Bly buckled under this mass protest and migration pressure and Pepsi withdrew. You’ll have to point out how that is suppression, cos I must’ve misunderstood what the word means.”
———————————————————————————————————————————And here is Jha:
AlokJha
“David, have you read any of the careful debate that went on all over the blogosphere this past week about why Food Frontiers was a bad idea? Many people have addressed the same issues as you but have done it in a more constructive way that lays out why ScienceBlogs stumbled over PepsiCo’s blog. Yes Pepsi should have its say. But perhaps not in the sly way it was presented by editors at SB.
Start here.
And then there’s this – and this
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But I think my favourite comment of all was the following one, in which a commenter under the splendid “handle” of Dead Badger offered Appell a civics lesson:
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DeadBadger
“Dear David:
Freedom of speech does not entail freedom from criticism.
You’re welcome.”
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In praise of the Grauniad – I want my newspaper a bit shambolic
Several of the science and Bad Science Twitterati tweeted yesterday with variations on “Why is the Guardian publishing this?”. Which is a fair question. But… actually, in a funny way, the whole thing encapsulates one of the reasons why, more than a third of a century after I started reading the Gruan, it is still my daily newspaper choice.
To whit:
Interesting and unpredictable daily mix of the excellent, the good, the OK, and the frankly dismal? Check
Inability to stick universally to a focused and consistent editorial line? Check
Disparate bits of the paper apparently not knowing what each other are doing? Check
Plenty of opinionated people sounding off? Check
Writers disagreeing and criticizing bits of their own paper publicly? Check
Lengthy arguments starting at the drop of a hat? Check
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And there you have it. The Graun reminds me of… well, of a University.
And that, despite the Woo-friendly tripe that regularly appears in the “Lifestyle” bits of the paper, and also despite Simon Jenkins’ regularly idiotic broadsides at pointy-headed elitist scientists and academics, is why I am still a reader.
You’ll be amazed to hear that my weekend reading of choice is the Gnaudrinog Weekend colour supplement. Such delicious outpourings of well-heeled middle-class guilt. I love it. The writing’s not bad, either.
Great stuff Austin – I’m a reader since it’s what I grew up with, though these days I only shell out for the weekend edition. Don’t have the time for a daily paper (what with there being so many blogs, tweets to keep up with).
Are you being ironic Henry? I have to say I do like Tim Dowling’s accounts of family life in the magazine!
Thanks for the great round-up of reaction to the whole Sb thing, which I haven’t had time to follow.
(p.s. I’m a great fan of the G2 section – I enjoy their features primarily, and Jim Crace’s hilarious ‘digested reads’ when he has the chance to grace the mag with his presence.)
Just to join the Guardian love-in: it also has the finest cricket writers, and of course the peerless Araucaria!
@Henry: we’re definitely middle class. Not sure about the guilt, and well-heeled is pretty relative. Having had the same job title for *23 yrs* (sic – you might empathise a bit, perhaps?), and clearly never going to go any higher, my income is pretty static.. and The Boss has only been doing two half days a week of medicine since the kids were born. But we are, apparently, in the top 10% of households nationally (just) for income.
@Stephen: Ditto to growing up with the Graun. Family papers as I grew up were the Graun, Observer and Sunset Times at the w/end (the Harold Evans era pre-Murdoch ST), New Statesman and Private Eye. Still reading the Absurder too on Sundays, faut de mieux really, but it is the Graun and Private Eye that I remain loyal too. When I was on Sabbatical in the States I had to get an airmail subscription to the Eye – it used to get hand-delivered through the NIH Bldng 10 corridors each fortnight by a messenger!
PS I don’t always quite know when Henry is being ironic, but I find it easy to picture him harrumphing at the Graun Saturday colour supplement. Which is actually what The Boss does too, usually at the ridiculous clothes and other “lifestyle porn”.
@Jenny: I like the digested reads too. And Charlie Brooker’s Saturday rant.
@Tom: agreed on cricket too – Mike Selvey is my favourite of the cricket writers. I am sufficiently old to remember him taking 4-41 on debut against the Mighty mid-70s Windies batting line-up.
My mum used to do the crosswords, and is a big Araucaria fan. So the Graun was a family thing when I was growing up; my dad read the Saturday paper, I (as a teenager) read the whole thing daily, and my mum did the crosswords. My younger brother was usually out playing sport.
Austin,
Can I ask whatever is/became of The Independent? Just curious.
The “Indy” is still around, Grant – it went to a tabloid format a few years ago. It tends to suffer from being the small player in the upmarket broadsheet market (the others being the Times, Telegraph and Guardian), and (IMHO) from not having anything very distinctive about it compared to the others. It was bought up earlier this year by Alexander Lebedev.
I grew up with the Guardian too, and it’s my first choice whenever I’m back in the UK. My Mum taught me to do cryptic crosswords using the much easier puzzles in the Yorkshire Evening Press, but I was eventually allowed to graduate to the Gaurdian (first one to get to the puzzle gets to start alone, then the next person tries their hand, then all remaining clues are tackled as a team. But if I get there first and see that it’s an Araucaria puzzle, I know not to touch it, on pain of death!)
Actually, I wasn’t being ironic. I like the weekend Gnudangl – the politics I find irritating almost to the point of being offensive, but the magazine is so well written I can almost forgive it. I almost always read Lucy Langan’s column, and the column about How This Column Will Change Your Life, and the chap who writes the first column.
I grew up with the Torygraph, which these days I read only for the editorial comment, the views in which are often buttock-clenchingly well to the right of my own. The only columnist worth the candle is Boris Johnson, whom posterity will see as the greatest statesman of this or any other age.
Had I the leisure to peruse periodicals on a regular basis, I’d read The Economist and The Spectator, both of whom are exceptionally well written and have a very varied political stance, from, oooh, centre-right, to righter-than-right.
But the Gungadin has the best writing.
We sometimes buy The Observer and wonder why. I rarely have the strength these days to lift the Sunday Times.
I regret to say that Mrs Crox buys the Daily Fail and the Sun – a dreadful admission, I know, but these tabloids are particularly absorbent and good for lining the cages of guinea pigs. I make sure the female guinea pigs can see the Femail section, and the male guinea pigs can shit all over the Page 3 girl.
Mostly, though, the paper I read avidly from cover to cover is the weekly North Norfolk News as it’s the only one with anything interesting in it.
Thanks for the links and the summaries Austin. I hadn’t seen that thing about “suppression of free speech” and “censored” .
My first thought about the [pepsiblog] was that since it might not be objective and it is from a company that wants to make money and protect its label, it might not be the best place. Then I read up on seed and SciBl and got more confused…
As for the papers, I end up with looking through the Guardian, Independent on the side of The Times when I do my weekend morning readings 🙂 I just miss actual papers in my hand but I don’t kill trees I guess…
You sometimes find paper shops on or near University campuses in the UK selling daily papers for special _”student discount prices”_. I’ve still not seen that many of our students buy papers – especially broadsheets – but the discounts are popular with the academic staff.
Åsa, the Torygraph is a great paper. Although editorially it’s slightly to the right of
Genghis KhanHenry GeeGenghis Khan it’s proper grown up journalism. The Financial Times is AWESOME, number 1 on the awesomablility scale ([tm] the Elder Pawn) because its audience are people who want the straight facts, not political bias—because money is at stake.On Saturday, Jenny and me will go to the local deli (think _Black Books_ but they serve incredible coffee) and sit down with one Grauniard and one Torygraph and compare notes.
I lately just read whatever people are linking from Twitter, but would be more embarrassed about that if I didn’t actually end up reading a lot of newspaper articles by following people involved in journalism/politics/news/media.
So it’s not *as* frivolous as it sounds, though I could do with being smacked over the head with a Saturday edition of a proper paper once in a while.
Oh, and I have the New York Times on iPhone, but always forget that it’s there. I use it when I need to look up something specific in the news, though, but not for regular daily reading.