December 15, 2014

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Choosing to Leave Science Blogging: Goodbye for Now

This post is part of a collaborative narrative series composed of my writing and Chris Arnade’s photos exploring issues of addiction, poverty, prostitution and urban anthropology in Hunts Point, Bronx.

By Cassie Rodenberg

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

This post is part of a collaborative narrative series composed of my writing and Chris Arnade's photos exploring issues of addiction, poverty, prostitution and urban anthropology in Hunts Point, Bronx. For more on the series, look here.

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Dear readers,

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It has been four years since I joined Scientific American blogs, three of those spent covering Hunts Point, Bronx, addiction and poverty. Within that time, the science writing online landscape has changed tremendously, changes manifested in less exploration of new form and more business-saavy network cohesion. Creativity has given way to page traffic, to abiding online news protocols and the directives of legal teams.

I am choosing to leave the network at this juncture. I am not choosing to leave the place I have covered, the place on which I continue to write, the place that floods my thoughts and my actions every day. I am choosing to leave a spectrum increasingly limited.

It is not within me to make my coverage traditional, to allow the precedence of widespread, global statistics, something I have fastidiously avoided throughout my work. I believe science relies too heavily on numbers at the price of the individual. Statistics are too easy. In this, science has forgotten so much, has forgotten nearly everything.

In my blog, I was granted a beautiful freedom for a while, a freedom I credit to the origin of the Scientific American blog network, to the innovation and open-minded nature of Bora Zivkovic. My deepest gratitude to those who took a risk on how I write and the topics I cover.

I will be moving to longer-form freelance work, which will be linked on Facebook and Twitter, continuing my micro focus on addiction and poverty. Please follow me there, as I can promise that I am not done, simply done here and with science blogging for the foreseeable future.

A resounding thank you to those who have read and followed my work, a larger thank you and longterm debt to the women and men of Hunts Point who have allowed me to share in their lives, people whose stories will live on in my work here in the archives.

I am humbled by all of you.

Love,

Cassie

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More Hunts Point Addiction Writing

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Chris Arnade's Photos and his Facebook feed

About Cassie Rodenberg

I write, I listen, I research, I tell stories. Mostly just listen. I don't think we listen without judgment enough. I explore marginalized things we like to ignore. Addiction and mental illness is The White Noise behind many lives -- simply what Is. Peripherals: I write on culture, poverty, addiction and mental illness in New York City, recovering from stints as a chemist and interactive TV producer. During the day, I teach science in South Bronx public school.

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