Mariette DiChristina, the editor-in-chief of Scientific American, has provided further details on the magazine's abrupt decision on Oct. 11 to take down a blog post by Danielle Lee describing an incident in which an editor–from Biology-Online.org, not Scientific American–described her as "an urban whore" when she asked to be paid for a guest post.
Saying she regrets failing to "promptly and fully communicate our intentions," DiChristina said, "we noticed a serious allegation was being made and that a person and a company were being named. This meant we were concerned about possible libel and consequences." You can see the statement here (scroll down).
DiChristina says that Scientific American "did not have a partnership with Biology-Online" as its website had suggested, but it is "one of several science-themed websites whose traffic is reported as part of the Scientific American Network." I'm still a little unclear what the Scientific American Network is, but I'm not sure that's relevant at this point. Clearly, Scientific American played no part in the slur directed against Lee.
The Lee affair led to unrelated charges of sexual harassment a few days later against Bora Zivkovic, a prominent Scientific American editor who admitted to some of the charges and has since resigned.
DiChristina renewed her pledge to publish an article by Lee addressing the issues raised by this unholy mess, and said she "would like to personally apologize to you all that we have not reached the high standards of communication that you expect of us and we expect of ourselves."
-Paul Raeburn
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