Does it matter that ScienceDaily republishes press releases?

ScienceDaily is aptly named. The popular website has been posting copious news about science since its foundation 18 years ago. And I do mean “copious.” On 2 April, for instance, I counted 95 news items!

Given that ScienceDaily‘s staff page lists just two people, founder Dan Hogan and his wife Michele Hogan, the productivity seems remarkable—until you realize that all those stories, at least the ones I checked, are repackaged press releases from elsewhere.

As far as I can tell, the repackaging is minimal. Earlier this week, I posted a link on Physics Today‘s Facebook page to a Fraunhofer press release about a truck-mounted laser that can scan roads while the truck drives at highway speeds. The ScienceDaily version lacks the original’s figure, but the text is identical.

Further evidence of ScienceDaily‘s light editorial touch comes from a search for the British spellings “metre” and “litre.” As an American news outlet, ScienceDaily can be expected to swap the spellings for the American variants—if it did more than simply cut and paste the original British English press releases, that is.

ScienceDaily does not hide what it does. At the end of each story you’ll find a short description of the source, a note about editing, advice on citing the story, and a disclaimer. Here’s what’s appended to the piece about the truck-mounted laser scanner:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft .

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:

• APA
• MLA Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (2013, April 2). Surveying roads at 100 km/h. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 3, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2013/04/130402091250.htm

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Whether ScienceDaily‘s behavior is unethical is not clear-cut. On the one hand, the website links to the original press release and to the institution that issued it. On the other hand, disclaiming the views in the article while recommending that ScienceDaily‘s version of the story be cited rather than the original comes across as a bid for the benefits of publication without the concomitant editorial responsibility.

But does it matter that ScienceDaily reproduces press releases? Could the practice even be good for the promotion of science?

Most, if not all, the science press releases I encounter are well-written and accurate. And although some of them sound overly enthusiastic, they tend not to exaggerate or misrepresent the implications of the research. Some press releases are better than the stories they prompt, perhaps because the people who write them spend more talking to researchers to get the science right than some reporters might.

There’s another reason to tolerate, if not welcome, what ScienceDaily and similar websites do. To quote the website’s advertising page ,

ScienceDaily‘s Web site traffic averages about 45 000 daily visits, generating in excess of 150,000 page views a day, or a total of roughly 1.3 million visits / 4.5 million page views a month.

That’s a lot of people reading informative, professionally produced content about science.