Abstract
What does the demise of Britain's most famous Sunday tabloid mean for medical journals? Probably nothing much except reminding us that any publication, like any employee, is dispensable. Some editors describe bigger medical journals as tankers that just keep steaming ahead regardless of what they publish and whether or not anybody bothers to read them. But the Titanic sank and so have super-tankers, reminder enough that even the most famous journals should never become complacent.
The world of scientific publishing tends to look down at the lowly ethics of tabloids, and recent events might serve to reinforce that view. Equally, you might argue that medical journals have plenty to learn from tabloids. Sydney Bolam, editor of the Daily Mirror in the 1940s, believed that tabloids fulfilled a ‘necessary and valuable public service.’ Instead of distorting the truth, Bolam argued that a tabloid's mission was ‘the vivid and dramatic presentation of events so as to give them a forceful impact on the reader. It means big headlines, vigorous writing, simplification into familiar everyday writing.’
Tabloids might have deviated from Bolam's guidance in important ways but they have refined their ability to impact on their readers. The tabloid agenda has only thrived because the public has encouraged it; tabloids give readers what they want. The News of the World failed to remember, however, that there are limits to the public's tolerance of intrusion and law-breaking in pursuit of the next sensational headline.
In many ways, medical journals have pursued an agenda diametrically opposed to that of the tabloid press by virtually ignoring what readers want. Medical journals have preferred to pander to the whims of their editors and an unwritten code of scientific publishing that values the inscrutable as well as the obscure. The number of journals that primarily attempt to satisfy the needs of their readers is small.
Indeed, the challenge for medical journals is more complex since the needs of authors tend to dominate. But falling subscriptions and the Internet information revolution have forced more foresighted publishers into thinking hard about their publication portfolios. Medical publishing has been a cash cow, it remains so but the cow is struggling to refill its udders. As a consequence, those journals and even publishers who fail to adapt to the challenges of the modern world, and properly balance the needs of authors and readers, might best serve a necessary and valuable public service by following the News of the World out of existence.