Scientific American's Owners Told Editors: Keep Trump Out of the Headlines
The Fall of Scientific American
Internal recordings and documents reveal how Springer Nature, the German publisher behind Scientific American, pressured its editors to soften coverage of the Trump administration—pulling opinion pieces, stripping the word "fascist" from an op-ed, and warning of $4 million in losses. When staff moved to unionize over editorial independence, the company sold the 180-year-old magazine to a little-known firm called LabX.
And if they saw the word 'Trump,' they were wetting their fucking lederhosen.
- glimshe
Get an issue of Scientific American from the past few years and compare with one from the early 90s. It will become obvious why Scientific American no longer has readers.
- mitchbob
- lelanthran
They buried the lede:
> Helmuth, who joined the magazine in 2020, had pushed it to cover more politics, arguing that science cannot be disentangled from its social context. Scientific American had issued presidential endorsements for the first time under her leadership. In 2024, after Helmuth called Trump supporters “bigots” and “fascists” on social media on election night, the magazine again became the target of right-wing backlash.
The magazine chose to go more political. When the political winds changed direction they found themselves on the wrong side of the new administration.
Remaining purely apolitical was an option for them.