Hello fellow journalologists and welcome to my newsletter, which provides insight into the news and trends in scholarly publishing.
My name is James Butcher and I’ve spent 25 years working on academic journals first as an editor, at The Lancet, and then as the publisher of the Nature journals.
For most of my career I’ve been restricted in what I can say; corporate communications are tightly controlled at commercial publishers. But now the shackles are off and I’m able to tell it as it is. Or at least, how I perceive it to be.
Scholarly publishing is changing fast and not always for the better. There are strongly held views on how to improve a system that’s creaking at the seams.
Some people claim to have the answers and a clear view of what needs to be done to make publishing more equitable and sustainable.
I am not one of them. I have more questions than answers bouncing around my brain. Strong opinions, loosely held, is a motto I live by.
You may not agree with what I write, but I hope to at least make you pause and consider your assumptions.
One of my goals is to help the next generation of editors and publishers to learn from the mistakes that my peers and I made, and to share some of the positive learning points, too.
If you’ve been subscribing to Journalology for a while, thank you for your support. I hope you’ve gained some value from the newsletter. Please do spread the word.
