Comments on: Scientific American Blogs Responds

By: Travis

Travis — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 21:27:20 +0000

I’d be interested in seeing what a lawyer thinks of the risk involved in leaving the post up. Wouldn’t a defamation suit require actual malice, or does that not apply here? It is my understanding that poor fact checking is not generally enough to win such a case.

By: dunc

dunc — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 20:23:53 +0000

Doug, are you sure? Lee’s post was a straight forward recounting of events. I am pretty sure email is not protected private information. I don’t see the legal issue.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 20:22:38 +0000

Grant, you might need a comma in that sentence. But if I understand you correctly, I agree, Bora would have known how to handle this; he is the manager of the network because of his professional expertise on social networking, blogging, etc.

Liz: Ya, that would have been much better!

By: grant

grant — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 20:21:22 +0000

Here is what I don’t understand. I thought Bora was the manager of the blogs. Why is the managing editor tweeting about management of Scientific Americann’s blog network and not Bora?

By: LIz Ditz

LIz Ditz — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 19:36:36 +0000

I am not impressed by DiChristina’s post today, or her previous communications. She is not some rookie; if on Saturday morning she had posted something like

Re blog inquiry: Post raised legal concerns that could not be addressed in Friday timeframe @sciam values @DNLee contribution.

then the uproar would have been dampened. Instead, she threw gasoline on the fire.

I also think the passage about a dying cell phone and family commitments were unprofessional.

By: Artor

Artor — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:49:50 +0000

The groveling seems sincere, but until that post is restored, I count this as crocodile tears. Let’s see some real, principled actions to correct matters, not mealy-mouthed weasel words.

By: Doug Alder

Doug Alder — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:16:33 +0000

Regardless of their motive for taking that post offline, if, as it now appears to be, biology-online is not connected with SciAm – then, from SciAm’s perspective, there are good legal reasons for them to remove it. SciAm is ultimately responsible for what bloggers put on their site and, while highly unlikely as it is, if that email turned out to be fake then they could be held responsible for libel in a lawsuit.

Regardless of whether it was, or was not, the morally right thing to do, legally, for fiduciary reasons, it was the right thing to do. While they may not have been involved from the start you can bet their lawyers are now.

By: Travis

Travis — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:05:27 +0000

They are really taking their time though. It is really poor PR for them to keep dragging this out without dealing with it completely. The longer it takes to finish this, the more damage there will be. Half solutions really do not work well.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:01:38 +0000

I strongly suspect this is not the end of it. I think Scientific American Blogs will make this right. It might take a few days, though. Here’s hoping!

By: Travis

Travis — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 17:55:46 +0000

I am not really all that impressed with it. Her post now changes the reasoning to legal reasons, after having twice said it was due to the personal nature, and not discussing “discovering science”. The changing story is pretty disappointing and dishonest. In addition, why did they not simply hide the post and verify the e-mails? They handled this in a terrible way, and frankly until they repost it I am not really going to be all that happy.