JAMA to change Archives embargo schedule when names change in January
JAMA’s Archives journals will have a new embargo schedule when their names change next month.
Embargoes for the Archives journals — which as of January 1 will be known as JAMA (specialty), eg JAMA Pediatrics, instead of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine — have lifted for years on Mondays at 3 p.m. Central Time. Starting on January 1, the embargoes for each of three titles will lift on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, also at 3 p.m. Central.
Pediatrics, Neurology, and Internal Medicine will remain on Mondays, with embargoed material sent to reporters on Thursdays, as it is now. JAMA itself will keep a Tuesday afternoon embargo, with embargoed material available Thursdays.
Wednesdays will see the lift of the Dermatology, Surgery, and Psychiatry embargoes, with embargoed content will be available on Mondays. And Otolarynogology – Head & Neck Surgery, Ophthalmology, and Facial Plastic Surgery will lift on Thursdays, with embargoed content sent out on Tuesdays.
JAMA Network director of media relations Jann Ingmire acknowledged that this is a big change. (Longtime embargo watchers may recall that then-JAMA-editor-in-chief George Lundberg moved the issue date to Wednesdays, from Fridays, to get ahead of the NEJM. Coverage in the New York Times increased by 50%, Vincent Kiernan noted.) The last one was about a decade ago, to shift the Archives embargoes to where they are now:
We expect reporters to honor the new embargoes, but understand that this is a very different schedule than what we’ve had for years.
The changes reflect the fact that even those Archives journals that are technically monthly are publishing content all the time. There was a huge data dump on Thursday afternoons, when reporters would get releases and tables of contents for multiple journals, including JAMA. Now, that will be spread out. And, JAMA says,
we will continue to publish other articles Online First from all the journals with the occasional different embargo day and time.
