1888 - 2015 R.I.P.

For more years than I want to count, yours truly, like countless others, loved National Geographic, a magazine filled with incredible imagery and well researched writing that showed us readers the wonder and beauty of reality, died when Rupert Murdoch bought the company and effectively killed it in the year of our lord, 2015.

When the climate-change denier/evil billionaire bought National Geographic, National Geographic Society CEO Greg Knell promised that "there won’t be an [editorial] turn in a direction that is different form the National Geographic heritage." This week, the company fired some of its most senior, decorated staff.

Murdoch has a long and dishonorable history of remaking the editorial directions of the publications he buys -- see, e.g., The Wall Street Journal, which downplayed foreign affairs, government, education and media coverage after the Murdoch acquisition, replacing them with more business and health coverage.

Included in the mass-firings are photo editor Sherry L. Brukbache, picture editor Nancy Lee Ott, photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols, and a designer described by colleagues as "the best designer on staff." At least 180 staffers were fired in all, the largest layoff's in the magazine's 127 year history.

R.I.P. 

Nat Geo circa 1915