[WikiEN-l] Publishing group hires 'Pit Bull of PR' to fight open access

[Ray Saintonge]

David Gerard wrote:

>(courtesy Mathias Schindler)
>
>http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,462845,00.html
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501705.html
>http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/445347a.html
>
>Now, is there anything WMF can do to advocate free content? Is that
>political or entirely in accordance with our goals? Or what can
>individuals do?
>
The article at 
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=60AADF2C-E7F2-99DF-383C632C90DD1AA5&ref=nature 
goes int a bit more detail.  They even note that "Nature" and 
"Scientific American" are owned by the same people.

I think that it would be unwise to overeact to what appears to be an act 
of desparation.  Even the "Washington Post" uses that word in talking 
about the matter.  If the best slogan they can come up with is "Public 
access equals government censorship," which sounds like something out of 
"1984," they really are in trouble.

Now that we have Peter Suber on our Advisory Board it will be 
interesting to read his comments.  It might also be worthwhile to have 
an article about Dezenhall if we have someone familiar with the topic.

It strikes me as characteristic of the old way of doing business or 
government that to avoid reconsidering one's actions and admitting error 
one just hires a PR person to make things right.

Ec