Author’s reply

I thank Dr. Daly and Dr. Teixeira da Silva for their interest in my article and for their thoughtful, important, and original contribution [1]. This is precisely the purpose of my article [2]—and the previous ones on the role of authors and reviewers in the Journal—to spark a debate on the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary editorial game. In this game, authors are the players, reviewers are the linesmen on the sidelines, and the editor is the umpire. However, it is not uncommon for the umpire, in good faith, to make a wrong decision, only to be called back for revision through the video-assisted review. In the editorial context, the video-assisted review assistants are the readers, who critically evaluate the journal’s content and integrate, expand, and correct it when necessary (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. The editorial game as a football (soccer) game. The Editor-in-Chief is the umpire, the referees are the linesmen, and the authors are the players. The video-assistant review (VAR) is the role assigned to the journal’s best readers.

The journal remains open to this process, and we are well aware that only through dialectics—the comparison of differing views—can a sharper truth emerge.

I described the role of the Editor-in-Chief as it is, based on my 40+ years of experience. Daly and Teixeira da Silva describe it as it should be, and this perspective is stimulating, refreshing, and timely. Yet we also know that ethics, when faced with economic pressures, can seem feeble—and Aristotle would have been deeply disappointed to read guidelines and prominent articles in our top-tier journals, sometimes accompanied by a list of potential conflicts of interest as long as the articles themselves. As Editor-in-Chief, Aristotle would have been fired within three months.