Those dedicated “journalists” over at Newsweek reportedly held off on running a story critical of drug testing because the piece was critical of Lipitor, a drug from one of their sponsors, Pfizer.
In early December, star Newsweek science writer Sharon Begley wrote a profile of Stanford professor John Ioannidis, whose research calls into question the medical studies performed by major drug companies. It’s a great read. Good luck finding the story in a copy of the magazine, though. It hasn’t run for more than a month — and advertising is the reason why.The piece had been edited, approved, fit to layout, and moved to the final stages of production before being abruptly spiked on the night of Dec. 9. Ms. Begley and others were told that the decision had been made because of an ad. Newsroom staff pegged Lipitor, a cholesterol drug manufactured by Pfizer, as the sponsor in question. The Ioannidis piece mentions, among other incorrect studies, a finding that statins are overprescribed.
Dan Klaidman and Nisid Hajari, who were then acting as interim editors of Newsweek as its merger with The Daily Beast was being lawyered, told The Observer Dec. 10 that Ms. Begley’s profile had been held, not killed. The ad in question had been contractually obligated to run in calendar year 2010, they said, and this was the last regular issue of the year.
[…]
“We didn’t kill Sharon’s story. We have every intention of running it in January,” Mr. Klaidman toldThe Observer at the time. The two editors made the case that the Begley decision was not a case of nefarious corporate intrusion on journalism, but rather an embarrassing — and strictly logistical — incident facing a weakened magazine with not enough pages.
The article notes that the piece in question still hasn’t run.
Good, old-fashioned journalistic principles at work.
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