I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss

Re:I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss by takluyver on Sunday June 14, 2015 @01:28PM (#9715657)

I'd hope that news outlets covering any kind of science pay for access to at least some major journals as a matter of course. The subscription prices are probably much lower per issue than the price to buy an issue individually.

Most journals also show you abstracts for free, which are overviews of what each paper says. If you find a paper that you want to read in full, email the author - most scientists are very happy to know that people are interested in their work, so they'll give out copies to anyone who asks.

This isn't to defend the paywalls - I think open access is important. But I don't think the paywalls are a valid excuse for journalists.

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Re:I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss by pessimizer on Sunday June 14, 2015 @01:45PM (#9715711)

I think the prices for most of these journals individually is enormous - they are usually sold in bundles through individually negotiated, confidential pricing agreements that run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Far cheaper per journal, but probably including a bunch or journals that the institution normally wouldn't be interested in, and a ton of garbage.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9425.full

Not to say that many/most papers can't be found with a little bit of effort, and I can't really imagine a situation where an establishment journalist emails authors about one of their papers and doesn't get it.

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