Journalist Keith Goetzman asks this question on the Utne Reader site.
Excerpts:
“Are our institutions of higher learning becoming dens of corporate complicity? That’s the thread running through a spate of recent stories that reveal how a trio of heavies–Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and Big Pharma–are pulling strings at U.S. universities. Each tale, on its own, is unsettling. Taken together, they paint a picture of collusion in which intellectual freedom and moral decency take a back seat to the mighty promise of profit.”
You can read the stories to which Goetzman refers by visiting the links on the Utne site. But he concludes:
“It’s not lost on me that several of these conflicts of interest occurred at my alma mater, the University of Minnesota. If I were the type of person who displayed my degrees on the wall, my B.A. from the university would be losing a bit of its luster right now. University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks said after (a recent) imbroglio that academic freedom is the “cornerstone of all great American universities.” I see signs of that cornerstone crumbling–and I hope that hard-working journalists keep drawing attention to it before there’s a complete structural failure.”
(Disclosure: I was employed by the University of Minnesota for 9 years and gained tenure as a journalism professor before resigning last May so that I could spend more time on my web projects and independent journalism training and workshops.)
In this week, when, as I’ve pointed out, some hard-working journalists have accepted Pfizer-funded all-expenses-paid trips to Washington for cancer news workshops at the National Press Foundation, I think it’s time for more journalistic introspection about a “cornerstone crumbling” that should also keep drawing attention.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Puleeeeease... this 'game changer' weight loss drug causes more nausea and vomiting than a placebo. Some game, some change. My friend Gary would spank you for using the eighth word medical reporters should never, ever use. @garyschwitzer @thackerpd
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/just-journalists-writing-tips-case-studies/7-words-and-more-you-shouldnt-use-in-medical-news/ https://twitter.com/OttawaCitizen/status/1361426796126830597
A scary @statnews Op-Ed warns that govt attempts to rein in Pharma may cut off access to "life-changing" drugs.
It takes @garyschwitzer to let us know: the author spent 10 years as Pfizer's public-policy chief. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1360325022578053123
.@TranspariMED criticizes STAT op-ed for not disclosing pharma funding of author’s institute - similar to criticism we’ve made of STAT op-eds in the past. @transparify @ThinkTankWatch @icer_review https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/02/transparency-watchdog-criticizes-stats-non-disclosure-on-pro-pharma-op-ed/
Comments
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Alan
October 20, 2010 at 9:09 amYou’ll like Dan Wasserman’s editorial cartoon in today’s Boston Globe:
Drug-hyping doctors
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/outofline/2010/10/drug-hyping_doctors.html
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