RELX PLC：小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪对期刊的评论——该行业经受住了更多看似合理的威胁

RFK JR comments on journals -this industry has withstood muchmore plausible threats First Look RFK Jr has suggested he could stop federally-funded researchbeing published in major journals, and they could create theirown journals. US federally-funded research drives a lowsingle-digit % of RELX and Springer Nature's articles. Andtrust and quality make government journals unworkable. European Media Nick Dempsey+44 (0)20 3134 5888nick.dempsey@barclays.comBarclays, UK On the Ultimate Human podcast on Tuesdayafternoon,Robert F Kennedy Jr said (as quoted inthis Politico article) that the New England Journal of Medicine (not owned by a major publisherbut distributed by Wolters Kluwer), the Journal of the American Medical Association (owned bythe AMA – an association) and The Lancet (owned by RELX) are “corrupt” and publish studiesfunded by pharmaceutical companies. He said: “Unless those journals change dramatically, weare going to stop NIH (National Institutes of Health) scientists from publishing in them and we’regoing to create our own journals in-house”. Aytaj Khalilli+44 (0)20 3134 2536aytaj.khalilli1@barclays.comBarclays, UK How serious would this threat be for journal publishers? Both RELX and Springer Nature have said that a “low single-digit” percentage of articles thatthey publish are funded by US federal funding bodies like the NIH. So if this were to beimplemented (no publishing of articles in journals for research funded by US federal sources) itwould be just about noticeable as an issue for revenues, but still quite small. How likely is this to happen? Journals have survived a lot of change in information, publishing and science because they arean independent verification of quality. It would be hard to believe that new US government-established journals would be unbiased – and the global science community would not believethis, in our view. That is the logic of these long-established and trusted brands as arbiters ofquality. So of course it is possible to have US government-established journals but we thinkthere would be a major backlash from the US science community if they could not publish theirarticles in the leading journals (if funded by federal sources). And therefore it seems veryunlikely to us that this would do much damage to the journal ecosystem. Barclays Capital Inc. and/or one of itsaffiliatesdoes and seeks to do business with companiescovered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have aconflict of interest that couldaffectthe objectivity of this report. Investors should consider thisreport as only a single factor in making their investment decision. Are medical journals “corrupt” because they are influenced by pharmacompanies? A small corner (c.1-2%) of RELX’s Scientific, Medical & Technical division’s revenues derives fromadvertising in journals, which is weighted to pharma companies. It is small for Springer Naturetoo. But journals have been structured over the years to avoid bias in terms of the articles which arepublished; they have independent peer review boards. The large publishers have recently seen the importance of reputation as a controversy aroundHindawi, an open access publisher purchased by John Wiley, hit the article submissions to anumber of smaller publishers and boosted those to Elsevier and Springer Nature journals (seeScience Integrity Digest, 10 August 2023). They care far more about reputation than aboutpharma ads. Overall, this comment from RFK Jr looks pretty unlikely to have any impact on journalpublisher financials but it is still noise that we need to pay attention to. Barclays | RELX PLC Analyst(s) Certification(s): I, Nick Dempsey, hereby certify (1) that the views expressed in this research report accurately reflect my personal views about any or all of the subjectsecurities or issuers referred to in this research report and (2) no part of my compensation was, is or will be directly or indirectly related to the specificrecommendations or views expressed in this research report. Important Disclosures: Barclays Research is produced by the Investment Bank of Barclays Bank PLC and itsaffiliates(collectively and each individually, "Barclays"). Allauthors contributing to this research report are Research Analysts unless otherwise indicated. The publication date at the top of the report reflects thelocal time where the report was produced and maydifferfrom the release date provided in GMT. Availability of Disclosures: Where any companies are the subject of this research report, for current important disclosures regarding those companies please refer to https://publicresearch.barclays.com or alternatively send a written request to: Barclays Research Compliance, 745 Seventh Avenue, 13th Floor, New York, NY10019 or call +1-212-526-1072. The analysts responsible for preparing this research report have received compensation based upon various factors including the firm's total revenues,a portion of w