For several years now, newspapers have been moving away from a longstanding tradition: endorsing candidates for political office. The New York Times now only endorses presidential candidates rather than weighing in on local races. The Arizona Republic — a swing state paper! — stopped all endorsements, while the 300-some papers owned by Alden Global Capital no longer endorse in governor, Senate, and presidential races.
But Scientific American is bucking the trend. In 2020, for the first time, the 179-year-old magazine endorsed Joe Biden for president. They followed suit this year, endorsing Kamala Harris. In both 2020 and 2024, the move spurred a great deal of discussion about scientific objectivity, journalistic objectivity, and the point of endorsements.
To learn more about the decision to endorse and the process behind it, I spoke with Scientific American editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth and opinion editor Megha Satyanarayana (formerly of STAT).
“We have this important platform,” said Helmuth. “We have a lot of knowledge, and we have, I think, the opportunity and the responsibility to explain how science is at stake in the election. And not just science, of course — health care, the environment, education, technology.”
Satyanarayana pointed out that she is a former scientist with a doctorate in molecular biology, while Helmuth has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience. Satyanarayana said that “a lot of times when people talk about science needs to stay out of politics, science needs to stay out of policy, what they’re really conflating is the objective practice and the humans behind it.”
We discussed the backlash to the endorsement, the goals of opinion journalism, and much more.
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