How not to defend traditional peer review

The staff of the Harvard Crimson has written an editorial condemning journals, like PLoS ONE, that use open review. 

I have no problem with arguments for traditional peer review, just as I have no problem with arguments for innovative new forms of peer review.  It's a healthy debate on which I don't take sides because open access is compatible with both.

But this editorial fails two counts.  First, it confuses open review with non-review.  Second, it assumes that all online-only journals (open access and subscription-based) use open review --i.e. that traditional peer review requires print.  

Note to the editors:  do your homework, or try peer review, especially if you're going to lard your argument with self-congratulations ("Getting into Harvard is hard, very hard....But getting a scientific paper published in Science or Nature, today's pre-eminent scientific journals, is oftentimes harder....Science has its own admissions committees....")

Update. Mike Eisen, Harvard grad and PLoS co-founder, skewers the editorial in a letter to the editor, October 13, 2006.