PhillyInc

J.P. Garnier, the Philadelphia-domiciled, soon-to-retire, notoriously outspoken CEO of GlaxoSmithKline PLC (NYSE: GSK), told a conference of business editors that newspaper journalists are shooting themselves in the foot in the way they cover the pharmaceutical industry. According to a blog account of the Society of Business Editors and Writers conference, Garnier said that "two out of every three" readers don’t trust the media. "And that will be the cancer that will kill the media." He also faulted journalists for, among other things, relying for information on plaintiff attorneys who “are in it for the money, and they want to use the newspaper to make their case to the public." On those two points, Garnier may know what he's talking about, because both quotations might apply to the pharmaceutical industry, too.

- Thomas Ginsberg