Scientific American Editor, President to Step Down; 5 Percent of Staff Cut

I keep reading about all these cuts and as a small publisher with a niche magazine yet a large audience it makes me worried for our future. Everything Respiratory magazine has only been around for two years yet we find we are growing by 30% a year thank goodness!

Right after John Maddox's passing, too...

I think when this is over, the magazine business will be much smaller and not recognizable from what it is today.

This is absolutely appalling news. Scientific American is a vitally important resource to students, educators and the general public -- an icon in its field. And Rennie is a brilliant editor, who led the magazine through a risky, ambitious, and bottom-line successful relaunch several years back - sacrificing none of its authority and depth, but making it more readable to the general public. SciAm is also the best-designed magazine on newsstands: the only one that really stretches the state of the art in what Tufte calls "the visual display of quantitative information." It's also pretty much the only magazine of gravitas and unalloyed objectivity that routinely pushes back against the rising tide of God-bothering, Darwin-hating, global-warming-denying, environment-destroying creeps, criminals, shills, mountebanks and fools. To watch Scientific American begin the long, desperation-driven slide to nowhere is a shame, and I don't think it's readers should stand for it. If someone offered me the chance, I'd pay $300 a year for a preserved SciAm with Rennie in charge, and I'd make a five-year up-front commit. You have to draw the line somewhere. Who's with me?

Scientific American under John Rennie had evolved into a vital, intellectually stimulating publication. It walked, very elegantly, the fine line between dumbing science down to make it accessible and raising up the reader. Science is the last bastion against the current inclination toward Truthiness, that feel-good, all-opinion-no-facts realm in which so much political and cultural discourse takes place. We need Scientific American more than ever, and I fear the new regime will gut it in a desperate hunt for revenues that, alas, will not be there. Destroying a magazine's editorial strength is the worst strategy for coping with our semi-doomed publishing situation. Few magazines will survive, but some will. None of the survivors, however, will have had their editorial vision vacuumed out of them. I salute you, SA!

Editor in Chief John Rennie should not be leaving. Objectivity is required for any periodical covering the sciences. Rennie worked his way up and is respected outside editorial circles for his objective review. SciAm provides a reliable source of introductory science for new readers while updating established readers on the latest developments. Rennie leaving is a shame. The bean counters countinue to dim the light as we regress back to the huts of our fate.

That's an awful large dollup of hyperbole. If a company's ad revenues drop 18% and they cut staff by 5%, I'm not sure that your lamenting is justified. If the editor is truly good, why do you assume that the outcome is so bleak? I work for a non-profit association, yet I recignize that nobody, including us, has an inherent right to exist as a business. It's far too early for such a euolgy/obit.

Scientific American's staff has been bloated for years. These cuts while unfortunate were necessary.

I agree Rennie is wonderful, as one of those mainstream readers, I have always appreciated the classy way SciAm made its content so accessible. Hopefully a great Editor like Rennie is leaving behind a great staff to carry on...

When publishing began, it was because somebody had a message they wanted to communicate or information they wanted to disseminate. The only reason they sold advertising was because it helped defray the cost of getting that message out. Then somewhere along the way, somebody figured out that generating revenue by selling advertising was a lot easier than manual labor, and the value of the message, in some cases, became secondary to making money. To some publishers, the bottom line became the primary focus, and editorial became that stuff that keeps the ads from bumping into each other. That, basically, is how we got to where we are today. The Internet, for better or for worse, has given the power back to the people who have a message to communicate, or information to distribute, and there appears to be no lack of a hungry audience to consume it. The problem for the bean counters, ad salesmen, and publishers who thought simply packaging and distributing information was an easy way to make a living is that, without the ability to control the channels of distribution, they're no longer necessary to the information dissemination process. Hence the pruning of the herd that has been decimating the publishing industry of late. Unfortunately, even publications like Scientific American, who never lost sight of the fact that the message, not ad revenues, was their primary reason for existence, are now facing possible extinction, along with the rest of the breed. In a word I'm sure they understand all too well, it's called evolution.

The sad fact is the value of quality editorial is dropping, being replaced by business models that favor sparkle, glitz and glamor over content - style over substance. Survivors will have mourned the loss and moved on, to retain their jobs.

"Destroying a magazine's editorial strength is the worst strategy for coping with our semi-doomed publishing situation. " Yes, the remarkable panicky mental paralysis of print publishers in the face of recession and the move to on line reading is yet another sign of how mediocre many managers are. The endless competition for eyeballs on the Net, and the current freebie Net culture, has them taking the one defensive option they should avoid at all costs - cutting the quality of the product by cutting staff and counting beans. Instead, they should realize that they have to charge for the Web product sooner or later, ASAP in fact, and they can only do that if they can assume some monopoly power ie control access and charge for it, making readers who value it pay up. Quality of information - fact checking, good writing, advanced thinking - is one way of gaining monopoly control, and charging for it, and another is providing information you can't get easily elsewhere ie scoops. Thus the WSJ, which can charge money. Everyone is scared that the Web audience will vanish as soon as you charge money for your product eg high quality science coverage for the intelligent general audience at Sci Am. The answer is obvious. Micropayments - monthly charges small enough that interested readers will pay up. Say $1 a month, or 50 cents a month, even. The potential in total number of readers on the Web is so great that even 25c a month might do it. Readers will vanish only if there is an easy alternative, so you must retain a monopoly in eg high quality, which means don't fire your editorial staff, hire more! The slowwittedness of publishers in this respect is a marvel to behold - the HYT is finally considering this option according to their shareholders meeting this week - but there may be some hidden politics involved to account for it. For example, a trend towards fencing off information and charging for it will presumably reduce Google News and even Google to irrelevance. Are they fighting it in some way? We don't need a few people willing to pay $300 a year for Sci Am. We needs many hundreds of thousands to pay 50c a month without even noticing it. 700,000 x 50c is $350,000. 700,000 x $1 is $750,000 - per month.

Wake up you enlightened elitists. The reason this is happening is that there aren't enough of us who are as smart, superior and smug as you to read this magazine. The market rules, and the market is against you. If more of you bought the magazine and patronized its advertisers, it would be a healthy publication. Sincerely, A humble God-bothering, Darwin-hating, global-warming-denying, environment-destroying creep, criminal, shill, mountebank and fool.

You're right, there aren't enough of us. Yet. But we'll get there--it's called evolution. But at least you can spell. You know, to most like you, that's spel. I guess the last letter falls off because you folks are so busy genuflecting to, you know, nothing.

Thanks for making my point, Kim. It must be nice to have all the answers.... except for how to keep this magazine going....

I have enjoyed SciAm Since my Mom gave me a subscription in 1970. I think Rennie was a good editor in many ways but misdirected the magazine in others. SciAm should have always been about science and nothing else. Rennie allowed way too much political opining during his years. His blatant support for certain political individuals and parties and his vitriolic condemnation of others did not belong in this magazine. I hope that the new editor returns to reporting on science. Debunking beliefs should not be the purview of this magazine. Controversy is part of science but scientific writers must be careful in their tone and choice of words lest they lose objectivity.

Politicians belong in politics, not in scientific journalism. Those who agreed with John Rennie politically loved him. Fine. Those who disagreed, hated him. Personally I agreed with him far, far more than I disagreed, and at a purely personal level I'm sure I'd like to be well acquainted with him; but I've always been deeply disturbed with the direction he took the publication. With apologies to his fans, I long ago concluded he never belonged at the helm of SciAm and I am enormously relieved at his departure. There's hope now for greater objectivity, "purer" science, and a vast reduction in hostilities. I'm looking forward.