WASHINGTON, D.C. April 8 (DPI) — The world of academia, long burdened by “publish-or-perish,” is being corrupted by an explosion in pay-to-play academic journals, according to a report in The New York Times.
But it’s a problem, its readers say, that has long existed even among highly-regarded mainstream publishing houses, and it’s worsened in the digital age.
The New York Times report describing shakedowns of academics and scholars desperate to get their written work published for an audience of peer scholars triggered a wide range of reader insights.
One of the most highly recommended reader replies:
This article gives the false impression that charging academic authors to publish is unusual, or limited to dubious upstart journals. In fact, the vast majority of academic journals, including the most respected ones in many fields, have long charged authors to publish, and reaped substantial profit from enforcing such charges. This is the bread and butter profit of many respected publishing houses. Publishing academic papers costs money, but since they are read by almost nobody, a charge the reader approach (even with libraries as the main ‘readers’) does not work. Thus, academics pay to publish their research, just like bad novelists do. Of course this payment is generally covered by their government grants, so in fact it is the taxpayer that pays in the end.
And another reader reply:
Congratulations on your excellent story. The Journal of Journalism and the Science of Journalism About Science is honored to award you a position on our panel for the upcoming “Science Journalists Discuss the Science of Journalism Symposium” as a distinguished journalist who studies the science of Science Journalism and Journalism Science. Your scientific journalism story, “An Exploding World of Pseudo Academia” will be published in The Journal of Scientific Journalism Journal. As a professional courtesy, we have passed on to the accounts payable department of the New York Times a small fee for the podium seat and unlimited ice water service during the Symposium.Yours in Science and Journalism and Journalistic Science,
Dr. Wright R. Rypov, PhD.