Another Shining Example of Journalistic Ethics

Our friend, the law professor Stephen Bainbridge, posts a note about having an article accepted—and then rejected—by a law-review journal. He ends with an observation that it sure looks like he had a contract with the journal—and, lawyers being lawyers, the legal commentators on the Volokh Conspiracy all jump in with claims and counter-claims of what constitutes the technical elements of contractual notice, acceptance, enforceability, etc.

Ah, well. Each of us does the discipline we know best. Having worked at magazines a long time, I think the Razor applies here: Never ascribe to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence. There might have been a little ideology involved—somebody noticing, a little late in the day, that Professor Bainbridge is not a reliable leftist. But the easier explanation is just that it got screwed up.

Maybe too much material was accepted by the journal, and something had to be rejected. Or maybe somebody without authority accepted it, and then got ordered to reject it. Anyway, the result isn’t a contractual violation. Just bad manners.