Journalology #150: Consumer media
Hello fellow journalologists,
This issue, the 150th, is a milestone of sorts. 239 people received issue #1; issue #150 is being sent to just shy of 9000 email addresses. If you are one of the originals and are still reading, please hit [reply] and say hello.
Today’s newsletter covers a variety of topics: China and India are on the menu, not for the first time and certainly not for the last; the distinction between preprints and the version of record are starting to blur; impact factors are out and Heliyon is back in; Scientific American has a new home.
Springer Nature to divest its consumer media businesses
Springer Nature today announced that it is divesting its consumer media businesses – Scientific American in the United States and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany. The strategic transaction will see Springer Nature focus on its core global publishing business in research, health and education while supporting the long-term development of these brands.
Scientific American and Spektrum der Wissenschaft have long-standing roles in communicating science to broad audiences and hold established positions in their respective markets. The publications are being sold to new owners with strong expertise in consumer media who are well positioned to support their future development.
JB: This news broke yesterday. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. Scientific American was not mentioned in the Springer Nature annual report, which sent my antennae twitching at the time.
Consumer media is a tough business to be in. Margins are low and there were few economies of scale to be had with Springer Nature’s core journals business.
Scientific American’s new owner is LabX Media Group, which acquired The Scientist in 2011 and also owns Discover. Within hours of the corporate press release the Writers Guild of America East announced that 15 members of Scientific American staff had been laid off.
Furthermore, the Guild claimed:
But there’s worse: we also have reason to believe that the sale was motivated by fear within Springer Nature that our attempts to doggedly report on the crisis facing science in America today would lead to repercussions from the Trump administration. On multiple occasions the company has sought to quash or tone down political or sensitive stories that were journalistically sound.
I worked at Springer Nature for 14 years and reining in journalists is not a modus operandi that I recognise. However, I wasn’t there during the second Trump administration, which has brought its own unique pressures for media outlets.
You may remember this story from 2024 (Scientific American editor steps down after calling Trump supporters ‘fascists’ and ‘bigoted’) and this one from last year (Trump cuts subscriptions to Springer Nature journals), which likely would have put the management team on guard.
Maggie Fox wrote about yesterday’s announcement on Substack here.
I suspect the decision to sell was primarily a commercial one. This statement from the press release sums up the financial backstory:
Scientific American and Spektrum der Wissenschaft together contributed approximately €25m to Springer Nature group revenues in 2025. The transactions will not impact Springer Nature’s guidance for 2026 and will be slightly accretive to adjusted operating profit in 2027.
In other words, Scientific American was not contributing positively to the bottom line, which is not an attractive quality for a business unit within a private-equity backed company.
I subscribe to Scientific American. The recent special issue on The Young American Scientists was exceptional. We need more journalism like this, but the books need to balance.
