Read on Twitter
The new Spectrum is intended to publish quality research without regard to impact. A large number of papers are reviewed at ASM and fall into this category and go off to get published elsewhere (e.g. PLOS ONE, Frontiers). We want to capture these papers for several reasons https://twitter.com/surt_lab/status/1328786739515641858
As Chair of the ASM Journals Committee, I believe that any type of microbiology research should have a home - as long as it is solid. We are likely excluding papers that are too niche, things that are too descriptive, or that are confirmatory, negative, etc.
We have a multiyear goal of flipping all of our titles to #OA. To pull this off, we need to replace the revenue from library subscriptions so APCs aren't exorbitant and we can continue to support all the good stuff the Society does. By capturing the papers we lose we can do this
This is *not* a play to boost impact factors of the other journals. ASM is on record for panning IFs. If our journals increase selectivity to boost IFs then we aren't gaining anything. We need the existing journals to hold their standards. To make the OA flip work, we need volume
