Leaked plan to attack open access has science in uproar

Hiring a PR agency to take control of the open access (OA) debate has backfired on the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and three of its most prominent members, John Wiley & Sons, Reed Elsevier and the American Chemical Society.

The scientific and information sectors have greeted with derision the news that the STM giants have engaged the services of “PR pitbull” Eric Dezenhall, a PR agent noted in the US for his work on behalf of disgraced Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

Dezenhall honed his particular brand of PR as a communications officer in the Reagan White House. Business Week described his Washington DC-based PR company, Dezenhall Resources, as “occupying a small niche in the public relations business” which lists its practice areas as marketplace defence, crisis management, litigation support and celebrities.

Defending its choice of PR agent, the AAP would only release a statement saying: “Not-for-profit and commercial publishers, as a group, have a responsibility to make the case on important issues regarding science and research.”

Neither Elsevier nor Wiley would comment beyond the statement.

According to the Washington Post, an organisation’s recruitment of Dezenhall is an admission of defeat: “If word gets out, you stand to be seen as on the ropes and willing to do anything to win.”

Scientific publication Nature broke the story after an internal email thread was leaked to reporter Jim Giles, who told IWR that it “gives some insight into the seriousness of the situation for publishers”.

Nature revealed that Dezenhall had advised the STM publishers to focus on a simple message of “public access equals government censorship”, and to “paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles”.

Wiley welcomed Dezenhall’s advice. According to Giles, Wiley’s director of corporate communications Susan Spilka agreed with Dezenhall that publishers had acted too defensively and worried about precise statements.

She was quoted as saying: “Media messaging is not the same as intellectual debate.”

Spilka was noticeably shaken by the industry’s response to the news.

JISC consultant Fred Friend said: “It would be galling if publishers are using large sums of money derived from taxpayer-funded subscriptions to pay a media consultant to formulate messages against taxpayer interests.

“It is an extreme example of the lobbying publishers have been undertaking to thwart the clear wish of many members of the academic community to disseminate the results of publicly funded research more widely.”

Indian academic Subbiah Arunachalam said: “Most developing countries invest in research hoping it will benefit their people. It is difficult to gain access to results without paying a hefty subscription fee to the publisher.”

Some publishers have come out in defence of the AAP.

Peter Banks of Banks Publishing in the US said: “For years, the OA camp has used media messaging, with its attending distortions and gross simplifications, to great effect.”