Michael Balter

Michael Balter is an American science journalist. His writings primarily cover anthropology, archaeology, mental health and sexual harassment in science.^[1][2]

Balter was a correspondent for Science magazine for over 25 years,^[3] before being controversially dismissed in 2016.^[4][5] He has also written for Scientific American,^[6] Audubon,^[7] The Verge,^[2] LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles magazine,^[8] and taught journalism at New York University, Boston University and City College of New York.^[9]

Born on the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, Balter grew up in Los Angeles and studied at the University of California, Los Angeles and San Jose State University.^[8] He obtained his master's degree in biology from UCLA in 1977.^[8] As a student, Balter was involved in far-left politics and especially the movement opposing the Vietnam War.^[8][10] He was conscripted into the US Army and stationed at Fort Ord, where he and other members of the radical Progressive Labor Party, which aimed to "subvert and destroy [the military] from within", attempted to organize resistance to the war amongst soldiers.^[10] He was court-martialed twice, once for distributing anti-war literature,^[10] and once for disrupting a training exercise.^[10][11]

Balter began his journalism career writing for newspapers based in Los Angeles, including LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles magazine.^[8] In the 1990s he relocated to Paris, where he was a foreign correspondent for several American newspapers and magazines, and began writing for Science magazine.^[8]

Balter's 2006 book The Goddess and the Bull describes the Neolithic archaeological site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey and the major excavations that have taken place their since the 1960s.^[12] It received positive reviews in both popular magazines^[12][13] and academic journals.^[14][15][16]

Balter wrote for Science for over 25 years,^[4] primarily covering anthropology and archaeology.^[8] He was the chief of its Paris bureau between 1993 and 2002.^[8] His contract with Science was terminated in 2016, shortly after he wrote a piece about allegations of sexual misconduct against American anthropologist Brian Richmond.^[4][5] Balter claimed that his dismissal was in reaction to this piece,^[4][5] which was the subject of what he described as a "tense, sometimes bruising behind-the-scenes conflict with [Science's] editors".^[17] He also highlighted previous conflicts with the magazine, including a leave of absence he took in protest of its firing of four women, and a blog post he wrote that was critical of Marcia McNutt, its then editor-in-chief.^[5] The American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science, denied that the Richmond piece was a factor in its decision to terminate Balter's freelance contract with the magazine.^[4][5][18]

Since leaving Science, Balter has worked as a freelance journalist.^[19] He writes about sexual harassment and the Me Too movement in science, often self-publishing these stories on his blog.^[19] He has also written for Scientific American,^[6] Audubon, and The Verge.^[2][8]

In 2019, he wrote about allegations of misconduct by French paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin, leading to a boycott of the annual conference of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution, of which Hublin is the president.^[20] In 2020, he was sued for defamation by UC Santa Barbara anthropologist Danielle Kurin, after Balter reported allegations of sexual harassment against her and her partner, Enmanuel Gomez Choque.^[9]

Balter was ejected from the 2019 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) after he attempted to remove David Yesner, a former archaeology professor who had been dismissed from the University of Alaska Anchorage for "decades of sexual misconduct",^[21] from the conference venue.^[22][23][24] Balter had traveled to the meeting to appear on a panel on the Me Too movement in archaeology.^[22][23] The SAA was strongly criticized for its handling of the incident.^[25][26]

Balter resigned from the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) in April 2021, following a misconduct complaint submitted against him by eleven other members of the organization. He had been a member of the NASW since 1986. Following his resignation, he claimed that the due process of the NASW's investigation had been compromised and denied the misconduct charges against him.^{[27][28][independent source needed]}

• Balter, Michael (2005). The Goddess and the Bull: Çatalhöyük – An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. New York, NY: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-7432-4360-5.