Dezenhall Tells Publishers: Openness is Censorship

"A group of big scientific publishers has hired" aggressive public relations executive Eric Dezenhall "to take on the free-information movement," reports Jim Giles. "Some traditional journals, which depend on subscription charges, say that open-access journals and public databases ... threaten their livelihoods." Dezenhall "spoke to employees from Elsevier, Wiley and the American Chemical Society at a meeting arranged last July by the Association of American Publishers." AAP subsequently hired his firm, Dezenhall Resources. In emails obtained by Nature, Dezenhall suggested the publishers claim that "public access equals government censorship" and "equate traditional publishing models with peer review." He recommended they work with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and gave his campaign fee as $300,000 to 500,000. In another email, Wiley's director of corporate communications said Dezenhall told the publishers they "had acted too defensively" and "worried too much about making precise statements."