gimpyblog's posterous

http://natashaloder.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-praise-of-jonathan-leake.html

here is the ESHRE media policy
http://tinyurl.com/28oblfr

 
Abstracts  are  published  in  a  special  supplement  to  the  ESHRE  journal  Human  Reproduction  ‘Abstract 
Book’,  which  will  be  available  during  the  congress  in  print.  Abstracts  will  also  be  available  on  the
ESHRE  website.  Information  contained  in  abstracts  may  not  be  released  and  made  public  until  the 
date and time of the sessions when the abstracts are presented to the congress.  
 
Embargoes  for  abstracts  lift  at  the  time  of  presentation  to  the  meeting,  unless  otherwise  stated. 
News  releases  from  presentations  at  the  conference  are  embargoed  until  the  date  and  time  of 
presentation or the official ESHRE news conference, whichever is earlier. 
 
Official  media  materials  will  be  made  available  to  registered  journalists  only.  Journalists  are  required 
to respect embargoes as indicated either by the press office or by the date/time of each session.  
 
Breaking  of  the  ESHRE  embargo  policy  by  a  journalist  will  lead  to  the  immediate  suspension  of  the 
journalist’s  media  credentials,  immediate  barring  of  the  journalist  from  the  ESHRE  conference 
premises,  removal  of  the  journalist’s  name  from  ESHRE’s  distribution  list  for  one  year  and  no  access 
to next year’s Annual Meeting. Media outlets that employ the journalist will be banned from ESHRE’s 
next  conference  and  from  sending  any  other  reporters.  Breaking  of  embargoes  by  non‐media  parties 
will equally be pursued in the appropriate manner.  
===========================

So it looks like Leake broke the embargo, even though he was barred and even though he claims he didn't.

Journalists might not see the fuss here but scientific conferences are usually considered private events with great care taken over the ownership of data and the willingness of researchers to release it prior to publication.  Conference abstracts are often useful as they allow different groups of researchers to see if anyone in their field is following the same lines of enquiry as them so collaborations can be arranged*, if these were to retreat behind security measures then it would make things a little bit more difficult for everybody. 

*or competition stymied

*update*

More things:

1) a version of this post is awaiting approval on Loder's blog.  It will be interesting to see if it appears.

2) on further thought, usually conference abstracts, although ostensibly in the public domain, come with restrictions on their use, not just by the media but by scientists too.  If you wish to use the information in an abstract in a paper, a grant proposal or similar it is usually required that you obtain the corresponding author's permission and it is treated as a personal communication.  Perhaps some form of creative commons license is required for these things in the modern era of journalists stealing copyright (and it is copyright theft if you don't have permission to reproduce it) as well as conference organisers/researchers being willing to use the civil courts to enforce copyright.  Maybe nobody wants to go down this route though, so better behaviour from journalists is necessary.

3) further to the point above that non-peer reviewed conference abstract data is weak compared to research that has been published in journals, perhaps conference organisers should not release any unpublished data for the media to report.