[Foundation-l] Funding Sources of Medical Research, was Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing...

Mon Nov 8 03:00:33 UTC 2010

> I think geni also flippantly pointed out that the potential for COI of
> our contributors is the elephant in the room.  I hope you don't truly
> believe that our contributors have no COI and the COI of our editors
> is immaterial on the _current_ state of the content.  The hope is that
> over time NPOV will rise to the top, but in many topical areas this
> has yet to eventuate.

This is a good point, rarely are editors simply randomly editing. They
have interests, they may be fans, have partisan views, be doing actual
public relations work, or just have an interest in getting a story that
is frequently distorted straight.

> The factors involved are not limited to funding; at the end of the day
> we need to be discerning about which sources we use, rather than use
> them all and add lots of information to the citations for the reader
> to decide how biased the sources are.
>
> --
> John Vandenberg

A brief notation of the funding of a research project is not "lots of
information". We have good sources that research projects funded by
marketers, at least those published, show systemic bias. Not enough bias
to disqualify them entirely as a class as reliable sources, but enough to
justify noting funding.

Journalistic reports by state supported media share that same
characteristic. It would be wrong to wholly discount it, but equally
wrong to treat it as we would independent journalism.

Bottom line, is reliance on editorial judgment. Something that is hard
for a mass organization to develop.

Fred