A decade is far too short a time span for a shift like that. I'm aware that journals are quite entrenched; I've heard the phrase "publish or perish". If it happ

A decade is far too short a time span for a shift like that. I'm aware that journals are quite entrenched; I've heard the phrase "publish or perish". If it happens, it'll be on more of a generational time scale. It has to be proven possible for someone to make a career without getting "published". Maybe by the time we're both almost dead, truth will be enough. :) And yeah, all those features you mention that academia values are useful for the press, too. It's really handy to have a finite set of vetted sources, rather than trying to keep track of the reputations of various scientists and use that to parse their comment threads. That's why I said it will be rough.