Dealing with editorial misconduct: What about relationship with reviewers and authors?

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7487.364-b

BMJ 2005;330:364 (12 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7487.364-b

Letter

Dealing with editorial misconduct

What about relationship with reviewers and authors?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—I would like to add another category of editorialresponsibilities to the list considered for a code of conductin Godlee's article¹: the relationship with reviewers and authors.

In my experience, editors of even the most prestigious journalsexchange emails and phone calls with friends and other associatesregarding accepting submissions and "invited" articles and editorials.This is within the rightful purview of their role. The problemarrives when this network (unintentionally) serves to promotea particular group or way of thinking in favour of a competinggroup or an alternative approach to an issue.

I have experienced situations where acceptance was facilitatedby a quick call or message from a supervisor to a friendly editor,where reviewers rejected material that would have beaten theirwork into press (other reviewers should have been selected),where reviewing was passed on to the graduate assistant ratherthan done by . . . [Full text of this article]

R E Laube, consultant clinical psychologist

PO Box 201, Homebush South 2140, Australia r.laube@unsw.edu.au