Our Third Decade
Still flying high
Salon has just called it quits after 31 years. There's a lot of coverage about this today, e.g. (from impending Daily Links):
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Goodbye from Salon
Today, after 31 years, we are saddened to announce that Salon is ceasing publication.
It’s difficult to find the right words for the end of something that has meant so much to so many people. Salon was never just a website. It was an idea about what journalism could be, born at a moment when the internet was still a largely unexplored frontier.
When Salon launched in November 1995, the web was a very different place. A small group of journalists set out to create something original: a publication with a strong voice, a curiosity about the world and a belief that the internet could bring journalism and readers together in new ways. They helped pioneer a form of journalism that would come to define an entirely new era of publishing.
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[Old] Salon, Slate, and a History of the Tricky Business of Publishing Online - The History of the Web
Slate got its start when Michael Kingsley left the New Republic in late 1995, taking with him a few key staff members and editors to work on a new online experiment. He went straight to Microsoft with an idea for a timely, weekly format news magazine published exclusively online at a time when Microsoft was aggressively expanding into new markets (a strategy that would produce, in addition to Slate the news network MSNBC). He carved out a space for himself on the Microsoft campus, with satellites in NYC, run by Judith Shulevitz, and Washingon, run by Jodie Allen. After about six months of prep, and with the financial backing of Microsoft at their wings, Slate launched in mid-1996.
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Online magazine Salon, early staple of internet discourse, shuts down
Salon began its life in the mid-1990s, barely three years after the internet itself went mainstream and a time when the “World Wide Web” was still written out in that fashion. It launched a decade before the newspaper and print magazine markets imploded — and a decade, too, before the rise of social media fragmented the journalism world.
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Online magazine Salon announces it will shut down
Salon began its life in the mid-1990s, barely three years after the [Internet] sic itself went mainstream and a time when the “World Wide Web” was still written out in that fashion. It launched a decade before the newspaper and print magazine markets imploded — and a decade, too, before the rise of social media fragmented the journalism world.
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Salon, internet’s oldest general interest publication, shuts down after 31 years
The site, which built its reputation from politics, arts and culture coverage, announced its closure just weeks before its anniversary on 20 November.
“The business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly over the years. After careful consideration, we have reached the difficult decision that our publishing model is no longer sustainable. We know this news will be deeply disappointing to many of you, and we share that sadness,” the statement said.
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Salon, a Pioneer of Digital Journalism, Shuts Down
“Salon was never just a website,” the announcement added. “It was an idea about what journalism could be, born at a moment when the internet was still a largely unexplored frontier.”
Salon was started in 1995 by the journalist David Talbot as a digital magazine covering books, culture and ideas at a time before blogging and online news had taken off. It was financially backed by Apple, Adobe and the now-defunct bookstore chain Borders.
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Salon Shuts Down Cultural and Political Site After 31 Years
The San Francisco-based site was known for launching numerous writers’ careers and was a daily stop for many readers in the days before social media. Among the film critics that wrote for Salon were Stephanie Zacharek, Andrew O’Hehir and Charles Taylor. The site’s television writers and critics included Heather Havrilesky, Hanh Nguyen, Maureen Ryan and Melanie McFarland.
Salon joins later-arriving sites such as Buzzfeed and Gawker that found it difficult to monetize cultural and topical reporting for a general audience and eventually shut down.
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Salon is shutting down after 31 years
On Bluesky, Salon chief content officer Erin Keane says that the editorial archive will “stay live for now.”
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Salon Shutting Down After 31 Years For Financial Reasons
The sudden decision took pundits and journalists by surprise and appeared to be solely a financial one. Salon’s “goodbye” noted that the “business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly” and that their “publishing model” was “no longer sustainable.”
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Online Media Pioneer Salon To Shutter: "Our Publishing Model Is No Longer Sustainable"
The site announced Thursday in a farewell post that it would go dark later Thursday. Salon was founded in the wake of a strike at the San Francisco Examiner when one of the newspaper’s editors, David Talbot, started exploring the publishing potential of the internet. Talbot was joined by Gary Kamiya, Andrew Ross, Mignon Khargie, Scott Rosenberg, and Laura Miller in co-founding the site, which debuted on November 20, 1995.
We're discussing in IRC what really happened there.
Regardless of the cause of this de facto shutdown, 31 years is a long ride, a good journey. Let's see if we too can exceed 30 years.
Our anniversary is tonight at midnight. █
Image source: White Egret Poised to Strike