Media meltdown hits science journalism

Bora points to this report about mega shakeups at Scientific American. The editor for nearly a generation, John Rennie, is out. Nature Publishing Group is now calling the shots. In non-science news Ezra Klein, king of all journolism, is moving to The Washington Post. We live in the age of creative destruction when it comes to media. I'm a dabbler in in writing about science, but as the years go by it seems that the media itself is converging upon my own bloggish means of production. I know that Ross Douthat is going to produce print-worthy column prose for The New York Times, but I have to think there'll be a qualitative stylistic difference from the days of William Safire influenced by Douthat's "New Media" exposure.

Speaking of converged New Media, there should be a bloggingheads.tv episode up Sunday or Monday which features myself & Jake Young.

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You should read Ross Douthat's obnoxious eulogy for Christopher Hitchens just so you can enjoy this magn
I don't mean that as snark. It's a serious question. Suburbanization has to be one of the greatest human influences on the environment.
We've been seeing an amazing amount of press given to something as simple as atheist signs on public transport, and here's another thing that makes the apologists for religion tear their hair out: Russell's teapot. They don't get it.
Ross Douthat is reputed to be a pretty smart guy. He blogged for the Atlantic before being given Bill Safire's old op-ed column at the New York Times. Safire, despite being wrong in may ways, was a sharp observer with good sources in DC, an analytical eye, and a sparkling intellect.

I've never rated Scientific American. I don't know why; it's just never appealed. Whereas I read New Scientist every week from, I suppose, age 14 to 24 or so. Now I read it only in the waiting room at the dentist's or the GP's. In all those years its policies are unchanged:-
(i) Everyone else should bow down before the wisdom of the god-like scientists,
(ii) And fund them without limit.

By bioIgnoramus (not verified) on 24 Apr 2009 #permalink

I've always liked Scientific American, but I think its glory days are well behind it. I have a particular beef with its recent string of ugly dark front covers, a bad case of instantly dated graphic design.

And of course like a lot of traditional media outlets Scientific American missed out on the whole new media thing; I guess they were trying to become Discover when they should have been doing ScienceBlogs.