http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/break-a-jama-embargo-get-blacklisted-then-what/ Keeping an eye on how scientific information embargoes affect news coverage Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:32:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/break-a-jama-embargo-get-blacklisted-then-what/#comment-20 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:38:14 +0000 http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/?p=115#comment-20 Is JAMA’s larger strategy to make journalists more docile and sycophantic, more willing digest and excrete on cue. That’d make sense, and explain why they’re punishing people who did not, in fact, break the embargo, but simply went out an got the information on their own. Such digging must threaten their ability to control the information. Would thousands of enterprising reporters competing for scoops harm JAMA? I’m sure politicians would launch an embargo system if they could get away with it (like the one in Japan). But political reporters are too cut throat, and so are the politicians. Still, consider what political reporting might look like in an embargo system. Would it be more informative and insightful? Maybe it would, but I think we’d miss out on a lot of important stories because the journalists weren’t looking. And, important events have a funny way of transpiring when the information flow is not controlled by the subjects of our reporting. Maybe it’s appropriate for medical journalists to get a little embarrassed that we’ve allowed this to happen.

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