Having just published a special twenty-fifth anniversary issue in October, employees of the The Scientist, a venerable monthly magazine and website focused on the life sciences, learned Thursday that it would be their last.
[Update: Following a wave of concern generated by news of The Scientist closing, on October 14, LabX Media Group announced that it had signed a letter of intent to purchase the magazine from Science Navigation Group.]
The outlet’s publisher and the chief executive of its parent company, the London-based Science Navigation Group, paid a visit to The Scientist’s New York office to break the unfortunate news that production would cease immediately. In an e-mail to CJR, publisher Jane Hunter wrote:
Closing The Scientist was a very hard thing to do - we’d just reached our 25th anniversary, which was quite a milestone, and I personally feel that it was the best life-sciences magazine around. It was certainly the most beautiful.
We took this decision because we just could not make the numbers work. The Scientist depended almost completely on advertising revenues and - as I’m sure you know - the ad market is getting harder and harder to succeed in. The economics of the situation eventually gave us no choice but to close. The magazine was supported for many years by its founder, Eugene Garfield, and lately by its current owner, Vitek Tracz, and we were lucky to be able to keep going as long as we have.
It was a sad day yesterday for us all, and of course particularly for the staff - you could not hope ever to find a more talented and dedicated group of people.
Although the end came abruptly, staff members say, signs of stress began to emerge a few years ago. In 2009, the outlet went through a round of layoffs. Around the same time, Science Navigation Group merged The Scientist with Faculty of 1000, or F1000, a website that offers “post-publication peer review” and evaluation of leading articles in biology and medical research journals. It was an “unhappy marriage” that diluted the former’s brand and was quickly dissolved, Hunter said in an interview. The Scientist moved its US office from Philadelphia to New York last year, losing more staff in the process, but still couldn’t make ends meet.
Hunter and other staff members said that Science Navigation Group sought a buyer for The Scientist before deciding on closure, but they declined to say whether or not it received any offers, referring the question to Andrew Crompton, the group’s chief executive, who was returning from New York to London at press time. According to Hunter, the group did not pursue any funding from foundations or other nonprofit organizations.
Despite its popularity and high estimation within the life sciences community, the magazine was unprofitable during most of its twenty-five years, Hunter said. For Garfield, who left at the publication at the end of 2009, and Tracz, who owns Science Navigation Group, it was “a labor of love,” she added, and the two “spent a huge amount of money” to keep it going.
That much is reflected poignantly in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue, which featured a nostalgic reflection on the magazine’s history by Garfield, the founding editor. Under the retrospectively shortsighted headline, “Alive and Kicking—The publication I launched a quarter century ago has come further than anyone,” he wrote:
I am proud that the trade tabloid for the science professional that I founded 25 years ago is still around and still working to inform researchers on topics important to their careers and lives. I think that we’ve made an impact on the life science community and that we can continue to do so in the years to come. But like any sincere parent, I cannot look back and honestly say that all the hopes and dreams I had for The Scientist came true.
I wrote many articles for The Scientist over 17 years, until 2005. It would have been nice if veteran writers could have been kept on when the editorial winds changed, but all in all, it has been a wonderful publication over the past few years, unique and intriguing. It will be missed.
#1 Posted by Ricki Lewis, CJR on Sun 9 Oct 2011 at 09:11 AM
I signed on as editor-in-chief of The Scientist and its parent Faculty of 1000 in late 2009, with the mission of merging the two offerings. It was a great and fun challenge to bring the super-charged reporting team, ushered in by Richard and Ivan, together with F1000’s top-line researchers. Though my colleague Jane refers above to this ‘unhappy marriage’, I believe she refers solely to the branding exercise as it impacted ad sales. The marriage of F1000 authors and the staff reporter-editors quoted above, Bob & Edyta, plus Jef Akst and Richard Grant – aided by talented interns, freelancers, designers, and infographic artists, all under Mary Beth’s guidance -- brought 22 issues of beautifully crafted and illustrated stories from the front lines of the lab, written for and by scientists. The birth of optogenetics described by one of its inventors, Ed Boyden; the molecular biology of drug discovery by oncologist Keith Flaherty; HIV, addiction, fungal and universal vaccines by thought leaders in the field. Profiles of Faculty members, their discoveries, and their inspirations (e.g., Leonard Cohen!), woven by biology’s great biographer, Karen Hopkin. New columns --Thought Experiment, Critic at Large, Reading Frame, Modus Operandi – all gave voice to a readership of scientists who live on discovery’s edge, in a language that encouraged crossing the line.
Twice before I’ve worked with Vitek to create content that pulls scientists outside their specialities –- the web magazines HMS Beagle (biology) and Praxis Post (medicine). Both were siblings of larger subscription products for professionals, BioMedNet and Best Practice of Medicine, respectively. Neither could exist without Vitek’s vision and generous patronage conjoined with a larger service that delivered specialty content. Like The Scientist they met their demise despite a large, vocal, appreciative, involved audience – because the parent business (or buyer thereof) required closer attention and the ‘third culture’ offshoot could not reflect its value in cash terms.
I wonder whether efforts to infuse science with culture and a common language can find a business model. Is it advertisers who don’t get it (digitally, especially), or do we publishers need a good shove to create and deliver the goods in a completely different mode?
#2 Posted by Sarah Greene, CJR on Wed 12 Oct 2011 at 03:23 AM
Late breaking news: Pleased that LabX has intervened and signed an intent to purchase the magazine. Long live the Third Culture!
#3 Posted by Sarah Greene, CJR on Fri 14 Oct 2011 at 06:30 PM