@ScientificAmerican
Behind the scenes at Scientific American
"A Message from Mariette DiChristina, Editor in Chief"By Mariette DiChristina | October 13, 2013
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/at-scientific-american/2013/10/13/a-message-from-mariette-dichristina-editor-in-chiefSkip all the babble and read this comment #22:
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22. Crip Dyke 4:03 pm 10/13/2013
While theoretically one could delete the posts for reasons of both legal liability **and** irrelevance, you have not asserted overlapping reasons. You have asserted two, different reasons.
I’m having real trouble with the idea that you deleted the post but did not know why you deleted the post, if the reason was reasons of legal liability: LL is not gut wrongness, it is a condition of which one becomes aware by conscious analysis.
So either you were consciously aware of an issue of LL which motivated the takedown, and falsely said it was due to the post’s irrelevance to SciAm’s mission, or you were not consciously aware of such an issue and/or LL did not motivate the take down, and falsely state here that your awareness of LL was in fact the motive.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that intentional deception – lying – is occurring here. Help me out: how is it possible for both your tweet on friday to be true and for your assertion here about LL motivating the takedown to be true?
As a separate issue, you state, “In removing the post, we were in no way commenting upon the substance of the post…”.
Sure that’s true. However, then you went on twitter to say that the substance of the post was so outside the mission of SciAm that the post must be removed. The removal itself was not the comment, but you have, in fact, commented on the substance of the post. Do not mistake the criticism you have received as being an evidence-free assumption about a non-verbal statement implied by the takedown itself. We have evidence. You have provided comment. This sidesteps the issue and makes me concerned you do not believe that SciAm has done anything wrong here.
This is furthered by the following statement: “a publisher must be able to protect its interests and Scientific American bloggers are informed that we may remove their blog posts at any time when they agree to blog for us…”
To be blunt, no one has challenged your right to control content on your site. Your critics have challenged whether the exercise of your control, in this case, was ethically right. If you are relying on, “I own the network, I can do what I want,” you must realize that the same objections apply to a pair of siblings who, on a subway, swing a bat that they themselves own and carelessly strike another passenger. When it strikes that other in the head, “I own the bat and decisions about when and how to swing it go to the core of my property rights over the bat,” miss the point. Your right to control the blog network is not in question.
What is in question is the ethics you employ in making decisions about the exercise of power that comes with that ownership. “I own the network” is not going to change the minds of content providers considering jumping ship. It is **because** you own the network that some content providers are considering jumping ship.
Finally, the following is just factually wrong:
“We recently removed a blog post by Dr. Danielle Lee that alleged a personal experience of this nature. Dr. Lee’s post pertained to personal correspondence between her and an editor at Biology-Online about a possible assignment for that network. ”
You use the word “personal” here twice. It was a professional experience; were DNLee not a professional scientist, it would not have occurred. It was professional correspondence; the writing concerned scientific work and the communication of scientific ideas and findings, both decidedly topics that are at the heart of DNLee’s profession.
It is quite disheartening to me that when a woman is abused, you fall back on, “it was a private matter” even when it so obviously is a professional issue which bears on the scientific professions so broadly. This is the excuse that keeps marital rape legal to this very day in the jurisdictions where the majority of women live. Using this excuse now only makes it more likely that talented women will feel it is useless – or worse, risky – to speak up about racist and sexist abuse in the sciences, either as working scientists or as science students. The fact that you used this excuse immediately after pulling DNLee’s post on the matter is both an ironic and tragic compounding of your original error.
I will look forward to your additional actions in this matter, but from your contradictory and accountability-avoiding behaviors so far, I am concerned that you are venturing down a path that would make my financial support for SciAm entirely untenable in the future.
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You don't understand? You will, after reading
this::
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/files/2013/10/pic-1.png
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/files/2013/10/pic-2.pngWhen she politely declined, the editor allegedly replied: “Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?” [1]
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/files/2013/10/pic-3.jpgand this:The Urban Scientist Home
"Responding to No name Life Science Blog Editor who called me out of my name"
By DNLee | October 11, 2013
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/2013/10/11/give-trouble-to-others-but-not-me/and this:"DNLee
@DNLee5
I told Biology-online no thanks (invite to guest blog - no compensation offered) in return they called me a Whore. nice."
https://twitter.com/DNLee5/status/388657780954902528and this:[1]
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/blogger-writes-about-being-called-a-whore-scientific-america
