This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: When two popular science magazines—out of about 17 in circulation—ceased publication in the same year, one commentator said, "The science magazines didn't shake out. They fell apart." The general manager of one of the failed magazines said, "There was a perception that they were irrelevant." One of the publishers remembered being in a "state of shock" as the failures emerged.
What just a few years earlier had been called a "science boom" in the media industry was now dubbed a "science crash." Cries of despair came from the science and science journalism communities, worried that interest in science "was a fad." The same worries have now reappeared 40 years later, as publishers have cut the science and environmental reporting staff at many newspapers and magazines. Perhaps the biggest shock came in late June 2026, when Scientific American was sold to new owners, who immediately laid off 15 staff members and cut salaries for many others. But it followed layoffs of science and environment writers at The Washington Post (where one of us, Chris Mooney, worked for nearly 10 years), The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and CBS News.
One longtime science writer recently worried he was writing a eulogy for science journalism. Another said, "We're in a greatly diminished journalistic enterprise in this country." On Bluesky, one commenter said, "The media mass extinction rolls ever onward." So, as scholars of science journalism, we wondered: Is this just a cyclical repetition of worries that appear anytime there's a setback in this field? Or is something new and more troubling happening?
Scientists have complained about media coverage of science for more than a century, calling it both inadequate and, frequently, inaccurate. Despite many years of increased coverage and better-trained science journalists, scientific organizations routinely call for more and better science journalism. Less clear is whether nonscientist adults actually want more and will pay to consume science content to a greater extent than they already do—at least when not delivered by celebrities like astronomer Carl Sagan in the 1980s or, in the current era, the former NASA engineer turned award-winning YouTuber and Netflix star Mark Rober.
In 1987, one of us, Bruce Lewenstein, analyzed the crash of the science boom. Bruce concluded then that an audience clearly did exist at the time for science journalism, though it might not have been as large as some commentators—and publishers—had hoped. The commentary about a crash, in Bruce's analysis, represented a moral panic—a real concern, but one where interested parties often exaggerate how serious or widespread a problem is.
In reality, science journalism continued to thrive in the decades after the 1980s science boom, as new programs developed to train science journalists, new outlets appeared, and new formats arrived as the internet grew. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. d research that matter—daily or weekly. Perhaps the current concerns are again a moral panic: real, but not quite what people are claiming.
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