FED UP with flagging sales, BMJ editor Fearless Godlee has revamped the boring old British Medical Journal.
She has FIRED all those tedious academics who clog the Journal with silly science.
She has TEAMED UP with Channel 4 to conduct fearless probes in Big Pharma.
She has REDONE the front cover to reflect a racy new red-top image for the Journal.
And she has SLASHED the cover price to 30 pence.
Speaking yesterday at the launch party for the new look BMJ, Godlee said: “For too long, the Journal has been seen as the boring old bastion of medical science”.
“Sales were falling fast and so I decided something had to be done. The Sun sells well, so I decided tabloid was the way to go”.
The new style Journal will in future ignore serious research, and focus on scams, sex and scandals.
Commenting on the new look Journal, veteran whistleblower Rita Pal said: “I am glad to see they have my Count Rubin story on the front page”.
But she warned: “I hope they don’t go over the top with hips and tits to boost readership. I told Dr No off about this when he tried it a while ago. It lowers the whole tone of medical journalism.”
City forecasters were last night predicting that sales of the journal will quadruple within weeks.
Staff at the BMA, the Journal’s owners, were unavailable for comment, but they did issue a statement distancing themselves from the new Journal.
“We always thought Godlee to be a safe but dull editor for our flagship journal, the British Medical Journal. When we asked her to brighten things up a few months ago, we had in mind a modest redesign. What we have got instead is a red-top rag. We will be meeting with Godlee over the coming weeks and will insist that she returns the journal to its traditional style.”
Commenting on the statement, Godlee said: “I haven’t gone to all this trouble to have the BMA pooh-pooh it.” The red-top look was here to stay, she added.