High-impact journals also contain news articles and editorials. John Ioannidis argues the prestige of these venues thus "assign[s] much power to non-researchers in shaping scientific discourse" and quantifies their output.
This'll be a controversial article. But does the prestige we associate with research article authorship translate to journalism? What about newspapers? And why the concern now in particular? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.517227v1
@richardsever Been obvious for a while that the business model of glamour journals isn't necessarily to sell subscriptions to scientists, but rather, to medical doctors, engineers, politicians, and various firms whose profile raises when customers see these journal issues on the coffee tables. The scientific articles contribute by providing a veneer of authenticity; the op-eds and job ads and all is what anybody on those offices would read. The prestige is what they buy.
