I found this humorous. h/t to Andrew Revkin.
Over at Scientific American, Bora Zivkovic writes about Why the NYTimes “Green Blog” Is Now Essential
Andrew Revkin of the NYT found the story worth noting, and included it in his story The Changing Newsroom Environment, about the closure of the NYT’s Environmental Desk:
Bora Zivkovic, the blog editor at Scientific American (and much more), posted a must-read analysis of the shift at The Times, noting the importance of sustaining the paper’s Green Blog. One administrative issue, of course, is who would manage that blog without a desk? In my reply to his post, I said that all roads lead to the Science desk. In a comment, Dan Fagin of New York University predicted that the paper, due to “organizational culture and especially economics,” was unlikely to adopt Zivkovic’s prescription. I hope you’ll explore the conversation and join in, there or here.
(There is one odd element there, a posted comment that was removed and replaced with this note:
“This comment removed by blog owner, due to inclusion of a link to ideologically-motivated anti-science site What’s Up With That.”
If I censored every comment on Dot Earth that had an ideological framing, or was in some way anti-scientific — think GMO debates, nuclear power, etc. — there wouldn’t be a lot left. I know that leads to frustration and some noise, but I err on the side of free speech. On a related front, I’ll be writing up a piece this week on research finding that incivility in comments amplifies polarization.) [1:55 p.m. I asked Bora about the comment policy. His reply is in a comment below.]
Here’s a screen cap of that comment:
Even funnier, Bora has now removed the comment at his blog noting the comment has been removed! I saw it earlier, noting 5 comments including that one, and I refreshed to see if other commenters had weighed in only to discover it vanished.
Maybe his “harshness” is why he has only 4 comments. Let’s help him out folks.
And Bora, it is “Watts Up With That“, just so you know when you delete in the future 😉
Heh….love it, Mr. Watts!!
If there is anything that characterizes the Klimate Kool Aid Krowd, it’s bullheadedness, boorishness, snottyness, imperiousness, and a whole host of other snide stuff. And they pretend to have room for science??
Typical of Greenies – presume to be liberal and open-minded but underneath just domineering and harsh. This hypocrisy must always be called out until there is some self-reflection.
I guess that is the way Zivkovic and by implication SA in general does business. Another example way what had been for so many years is becoming AIP (absolutely irrelevant patter)
So all those pictures of Lake Eyre in the Scientific American as a salt flat when it was a beautiful inland sea full of wildlife was not an accident.It was just a bit of soft disinformation ‘this is what global warming has done to Central Australia”.
Such a pity since so many articles are well balanced.
The magazine needs to change its name to Unscientific American. BTW, one can always use an URL shortener like tinyurl.com to post a link. That way Bora will at least have to check links manually to see if it is “anti-science”.
–Ahrvid
Anthony, aren’t you the one who occasionally posts science quizes about the state of our scientific knowledge? You sir are so far from being anti-scientific as Bora is to being civil that one wonders how scientific Bora really is. Christopher Loehle and Leif Svalgaard are testaments to your blog being about science. I especially like Leif’s commentaries. The fact that you parody in a genteel manner some dodgy research is where some bloggers get the idea that your blog is anti-scientific.
Another blog that is delightful is Climate Audit. Stephen McIntyre skewers in a witty manner before his target realizes he is for dinner. The wit and wisdom of these two blogs often makes my day. Keep it up!!
Does Bora ever reflect on the loss of traditional and well-heeled Scientific America readers?
As he repeats the behaviour that tanked the magazines circulation?
Originally I thought the SA blog entry was about as exciting as watching plumbers discussing the need for a certain shape of elbow pipe… surely interesting to them, completely irrelevant to the rest of the world. However, I realized (especially after reading the 4 comments that are there) that it’s more like reading the internal memos at an ad agency, tasked with selling a product nobody needs or wants. Its not about the actuality, it’s about the perception.
Anthony, you are far too generous, that blog will get more traffic today than for the rest of the month, mind you its worth the visit, Bora reveals much about his disconnect from reality in such a short article, I especially liked his method of reading a print newspaper, I suspect the same applies to his understanding of the scientific method.
A whole 5 comments, the delete button must be smoking.
Suspected it was just a ploy to prevent his readers from actually finding WUWT. So tried a google on What’s Up With That. Top return refers back to this exact article! Same on Bing
Another stunning example of why I no longer read Scientific American let alone subscribe to it. They jumped the shark, or nuked the fridge, a long time ago, and it’s beyond sad to see what the mag has become. I expect headline articles by Lysenko any day now.
I was so shocked at the amount of climate alarmism in Scientific American I had to allow my subscription to lapse. It broke my heart, but I just couldn’t tolerate the continual climate alarmism issue after issue after issue.
Harsh = biased?
I say what what Watts what?
The magazine needs to change its name to Unscientific Unamerican.
He has six comments now.
BTW, FYI http://youtu.be/RztCk5JOdCg
klem says:
January 13, 2013 at 1:21 pm
I was so shocked at the amount of climate alarmism in Scientific American I had to allow my subscription to lapse. It broke my heart, but I just couldn’t tolerate the continual climate alarmism issue after issue after issue.
I went a step futher, I told them to take the subscription and shove it up their arse. It seemed that after two years with no problems, they decided to change the spelling of my name. I asked them to correct it, they refused. So I told them to stick it. It was good timing on their part. Shortly after that they went off on their anti-human agenda and further justified my disdain for their rag.
Bora Zivkovic does not tolerate references to Al Gore. Good.
Does Albert Arnold Gore tolerate references to Bora? No, he does not.
Consensus rulez.
Bora…hmmm about the only good thing named Bora was a 70’s super car built by Maserati.
i think you all forgot to say: Bravo Mr. Andrew Revkin!
The greening of SA illuminated my intellectual coming of age. I devoured SA, cover to cover, perhaps like my less precocious peers did True or Argosy. I was not consciously aware of its dishonesty until perhaps the Belle Glade HTLV mosquito story that, true or not, I found seminal. The dishonesty was driven home as the article was disappeared.
Visiting SA to see the article might be again available, I received this timely warning, “Secure Connection Failed An error occurred during a connection to scientificamerican.com. Peer’s Certificate has been revoked. (Error code: sec_error_revoked_certificate)”
This guys really take Orwell’s 1984 has a instruction book rather than a warning .
‘you’re wrong , your post never existed, any evidenced you may think you have that it did is itself, after ‘correction’, non-existent .
http://www.scientificamerican.com/mediakit/assets/pdf/audience_ABC.pdf
20% drop in circulation from 2009 to 2010.
He has a new comment up:
I suspect a more useful tactic would be a civil note to the Editor at Scientific American.