Back in January, I wrote about a surprising, and disappointing, sin of omission at the Charleston Hub’s Against the Grain podcast. I’m a fan of Charleston and its parent organization, Annual Reviews, for a slew of reasons (just one of which is the AR’s pioneering role in Subscribe to Open). As I wrote in January, Charleston’s podcast ran an episode sponsored by Digital Science, the Holtzbrinck-owned for-profit—corporate sibling to scholarly publishing oligopolist Springer Nature. The episode didn’t mention Digital Science’s Holtzbrinck/Springer Nature embedding, even though it featured a Digital Science VP as guest.
Here we are again, and it’s a little worse. An early March Against the Grain episode featured another Digital Science VP. This time, the whole episode was given over to a pitch for a new paid service, Digital Science’s Dimensions Author Check. The episode, it pains me to say, was barely distinguishable from an infomercial—but without any disclosure. The Digital Science sponsorship was not mentioned in the podcast itself, and even the show notes—which mention the sponsorship—fail to disclose the Holtzbrinck/Springer Nature context. The show-note disclosure is itself an ad:
This episode is sponsored by Digital Science, a global leader in AI-driven technology, providing advanced software and data solutions that empower researchers, universities, and organizations across the research ecosystem. Born out of the research community itself, Digital Science was founded by researchers who sought to solve the challenges they were facing. Now Digital Science is dedicated to making open, collaborative, and inclusive research a reality, partnering with academic institutions to provide pioneering AI-powered tools that enhance decision-making, foster innovation, and help shape a future where trusted, collaborative research drives progress for all. Learn more at https://www.digital-science.com/.
The episode closes with the Against the Grain host’s light pitch: “Tell our listeners where they can go or how they can find out more about this cool new tool.”
“Oh, thank you,” replies the Digital Science VP.
Charleston was, of course, founded to serve academic librarians. It remains a nonprofit, with a slew of initiatives, including the amazing Katina magazine, in support of that mission. Indeed, the magazine’s latest piece, “Academic Databases and the Art of the Overcharge,” is a powerful indictment of big-vendor exploitation.
So it’s disappointing to see the organization’s podcast arm serve as a greenwasher (in the currency sense) of a big five oligopolist. Sponsorship is one thing. Including reps from the sponsor on multiple episodes is another. Failing to mention the sponsorship on those episodes is an additional step. Not disclosing the sponsor’s place in the library-starving for-profit ecosystem, even in the fine print, is a real problem.