> 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.
> Remaining purely apolitical was an option for them
I don't see how.
Lots of well-established, provable facts are "political" because some religious group, industry or subset of the population doesn't like them. Evolution, climate change, the Earth being more than 6,000 years old, etc are simultaneously obviously true scientifically but disputed politically by significant sections of the American public.
Lots of research is going to get pulled into "politics". Publish a paper about autism or depression or obesity, or about algae blooms from fertilizer runoff or lower test scores in schools with more air pollution or anything to do with mRNA or guns or glaciers and on and on and you'll get pulled into some sort of political dispute.
At best, a publication can avoid directly naming politicians or political parties, but it's impossible to be apolitical when publishing the temperature measurements or showing a dinosaur fossil are considered political.
The timing was sadly important too. She started 2020. The pandemic had disputed origins. I would say one can guess which side her editorial take took, but one doesn’t need to; she openly mentioned her views on lab leak in a handbook for scicomm editors she authored.
“Trumped-up controversies about where the novel coronavirus originated have fueled racism and given cover to politicians who withdrew funding for international collaborations with China.”
That handbook was her leaving her indelible mark on all western scicomms editing.
> 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.