Good riddance - Scientific American Editor sacked

Scientific American magazine used to be good. Really really good. I grew up with it and voraciously read every issue and looked forward to the Projects for Amateur Scientists column edited by C. L. Stong. I got out of reading it in the 1980's when I started getting completely into computers and working solely in that field. About ten years ago, I started subscribing to it again and was sorely disappointed at what I was reading. The articles were dumbed down and worse, politicized. They drank the Anthropogenic Global Warming Kool Aid and when Bjorn Lomborg published his reasoned debate, SciAm launched into a vicious ad-hominem attack that left many people on both sides of the fence stunned. No apology was ever given. Needless to say, I dropped my subscription after a few issues. Today, it was with joy that I read the following piece by Jeff Bercovici in Cond� Nast Portfolio:

'Scientific American' Editor Out in Reorg
The recession has finally come to Scientific American. Editor in chief John Rennie and half a dozen or so of his underlings are leaving amid a major reorganization of the 164-year-old magazine's operations, according to sources. Rennie has held his job since 1994. [Update: More than 20 employees have been let go overall, including president Steven Yee; details below.]

Unlike most magazines, which are sensitive to fluctuations in the ad market, Scientific American has long enjoyed a degree of insulation from economic ups and downs as a relatively isolated piece of the book publishing giant Macmillan, itself a unit of Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

This week's reorganization may signal a shift in Macmillan's hands-off treatment. With ad pages in Scientific American down 18.1 percent in the first quarter, the magazine is consolidating some of its operations with the New York office of Nature, the London-based journal. I'm told executive editor Mariette DiChristina has been appointed acting editor in chief for the time being.

I contacted SciAm publisher Bruce Brandfon to ask about the changes; he told me he could address "non-editorial" questions and steered me to Rennie for the rest. I'm still waiting to hear from Rennie.

As for Projects for the Amateur Scientist, there have been some incomplete copies on CD-ROM and one book published in early 1960 (still have my copy!). Fortunately, the last editor of the column has collected every single article and is selling them here: Bright Science for the very reasonable price of $57 which includes a lot of bonus materials. I got a copy a few years ago and it is very high quality and lots of fun. A lot of the projects were built around vacuum tubes but for anyone with a basic knowledge of electronics and Op Amps, conversion to solid state is trivial. The science is still cutting edge and awesome...