Pepsipocalypse
The big news this week was the mass exodus of bloggers from ScienceBlogs following the unveiling of a new PR blog by PepsiCo. Everyone and their monkey has blogged about this. Here are the best takes on the fracas, from my perspective:
Why it matters: Martin Robbins very neatly sums up the major issues. PalMD was the first to speak out and subsequently clarified what the issues are; Brian Switek did the same. Journalists like Maryn McKenna and John Rennie talk about the conflict of interest issue from the perspective of people in the know. And Jennifer Ouellette discusses the wider implications of Pepsigate, and why it shows that blogging has come of age.
What the press said: Mainstream journalistic outlets like the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, the Guardian and the Columbia Journalism Review, were clear in their criticism.
What could have happened: Abel Pharmboy talks about how it could have gone down
Why it still matters: David Dobbs was one of the first to leave and explains why he’s sticking with that move. At the Guardian, Gaia Vince spills the beans on how a column she wrote about the Bhopal disaster was axed by a SEED editor because Dow Chemicals (the company behind the disaster) was a potential advertiser. And Abel, myself and others clarify why deciding to stay at ScienceBlogs doesn't say anything about the principles of individual bloggers.
It genuinely saddens me to see these events unfold, especially because I have many friends and colleagues who are being directly affected. From my experience, ScienceBlogs has always succeeded because of the passion of its bloggers and the community managers that assisted them. It has succeeded in spite of, rather than because of, the actions of upper management.
I urge you to please go and visit the various blogs, both those that left and those that stayed. There’s some truly fine stuff there and it deserves your support. Carl Zimmer is tracking the migrating bloggers and cites the problems involved in taking a stand and moving elsewhere. And Chris Clarke set up an RSS feed so you can follow all the dispersed bloggers.
