WaPoSlate

December 21, 2004 12:30 PM

Washington Post Buys Slate.
posted by me3dia (24 comments total)

Slate editor Jacob Weisberg's comments on the sale.
posted by me3dia at 12:34 PM on December 21, 2004

Oh, God, at first I thought you said the Washington Times.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:36 PM on December 21, 2004

That's it, I'm moving to Canada.
posted by Mach3avelli at 12:37 PM on December 21, 2004

My first reaction: if they had to be sold to someone, it could have gone to a way worse outlet.

Don G., as we shall now call him,...
Not around here we won't.
posted by chicobangs at 12:41 PM on December 21, 2004

That's kinda my thought, too, chicobangs. I'd have hated to see it go to the Tribune Company or something (although Slate's politics wouldn't have been a good match w/the Trib's).

Hopefully WaPo won't put a damn "free registration" moat around their new property.
posted by me3dia at 12:47 PM on December 21, 2004

So?
posted by xmutex at 12:50 PM on December 21, 2004

From Slate two days ago:

There are three basic ways a large business can grow: by selling more of the same products to more customers and at higher prices, by creating new lines of business from scratch, or by purchasing growth through mergers and acquisitions. For companies operating in struggling industries, the last path makes the most economic sense. And this week's deals are, by and large, taking place in struggling industries.
posted by trey at 12:55 PM on December 21, 2004

Slate had already gotten hopelessly liberal--at least it's appropriately id'd now.

An interesting question, had, G-d forbid, Kerry won, would this sale have taken place? I suspect opposition outlets do better (when they are the opposition). Sorry, Rush, Sean, Laura, Monica, Paris...wait....oops.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:27 PM on December 21, 2004

But that doesn't mean Salon will not die soon....
posted by ParisParamus at 1:28 PM on December 21, 2004

I really doubt that WaPo will change Slate much, but I do expect to see some Salon-like click-through BS that will be popping up on the site in the next couple months.

If all they put up is a 'free registration' moat on the site, then that's fine with me considering the alternative.
posted by Arch Stanton at 1:36 PM on December 21, 2004

I've really enjoyed all the non-political stuff at Slate, especially the columns on tech stuff. I wonder what changes will take place -- if it'll be just the URL, or if Slate goes behind the Washington Post's terrible registration wall and they subsume the site entirely.
posted by mathowie at 1:36 PM on December 21, 2004

Slate is liberal? Goodness, I must have fallen into a vortex that has thrown me into another universe. Slate just struck me as being woefully inept at offering anything more then I could not already obtain from traditional newspapers or their online equivalents. I'm puzzled to see what the Washington Post gets out of this deal of any worth, it's not like Slate had a lot of great articles to re-sell or an amazing site management system/back-end. As for Salon, I've never been impressed by their work but I am impressed at how they manage to loose money every year and yet keep going.
posted by Vaska at 1:50 PM on December 21, 2004

parisparamus as you well know had kerry won you'd have been "hit again in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the united states."

in which case salon would have bought the washington times and all of clear channel.
posted by three blind mice at 1:52 PM on December 21, 2004

Good to see so few Bush bashing posts on Mefi these days. I guess some of the unsual suspects are still to depressed to post.

On the other hand, perhaps a significant portion of the anti-Bush posts were actually Arafat-sponsored, and with that evil one gone, the funding has dried up?
posted by ParisParamus at 1:56 PM on December 21, 2004

tooooo depressed, that should have been....
posted by ParisParamus at 1:57 PM on December 21, 2004

I like slate too--when it's not bashing the US Military and the administration in its cute/sarcastic way.
posted by ParisParamus at 2:02 PM on December 21, 2004

I think Slate will have a good home with the WaPo. I wasn't happy to hear that they were being sold, but I can definitely live with them being owned by the Post, as opposed to the alternatives.
I'm glad they'll be able to keep publishing the same way they do now. While I agree it's not the highest quality stuff on the web (and sometimes a bit too contrarian for my taste), most of the short articles are more than worth the time it takes to read them. I love The Explainer.

Does anyone think the NYTimes will try to counter in any way?
posted by diftb at 2:06 PM on December 21, 2004

I most value Slate for its trenchant, non-partisan critique of Beltway-and-Manhattan media. While no political reporter is truly immune from the baleful influence of the WaPo and the NYT, Slate's reporters were hardier than most.

(Salon used to have a fairly trenchant critique of its own, but has quite lost its way in the wilds of humorless and self-righteous Bush hating. Slate's writers hate Bush too, but they have a sense of humor and a willingness to critique their own loathing which makes it lots more useful to a moderate or conservative reader.)

And, definitely, what Mathowie said about Slate's non-political work, which has been first rate.
posted by MattD at 2:31 PM on December 21, 2004

Does this mean their NPR show will get better?
posted by drezdn at 6:03 PM on December 21, 2004

Slate...ehh...so what.

Vaska...loose and lose are two different words.

Salon is a good magazine. Zine. Online content provider. Whatever.
posted by kozad at 7:23 PM on December 21, 2004

Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, who will remain at the helm of the magazine, said in a message to readers that Slate would retain its editorial independence under its new owners.

So... what is everyone worried about?
posted by gagglezoomer at 7:28 PM on December 21, 2004

Salon's only use to me these days is my beloved Stephanie Zecharek, may she live forever.

Slate, on the other hand, is my bread and butter. I read Today's Papers every day. I live for the Explainer columns. Jack Shafer is the second-best press critic in the country (the first being the NY Post's Matt Taibbi, natch). If I weren't gay, I would be doing everything in my power to marry Dahlia Lithwick. Clive Thompson's writing on technology is remarkable. And most of the freelance contributions are top-notch.

It is liberal as all get-out, but I don't read it for the political commentary all that often, so I feel only marginally confirmed in my partisanness by it.

And -- wait -- the Washington Post's a liberal mouthpiece? That's rich. Not that the paper's conservative, from a news or editorial standpoint. But the paper's editorial board bends so far towards the right in an effort to appear evenhanded (I imagine, sometimes, reading their logical contortions, that many of them are quite liberal, but suffer from that unfortunate liberal journalist guilt thing that forces them to try to appear as conservative as possible without their souls burning). Len Downie, the executive editor, famously refrains from voting to avoid any possible semblance of political tilt. Ridiculous.

Also, the magazine has never refrained from criticizing Microsoft, recently, for example, loudly praising Firefox over Internet Explorer in one of its tech reviews. And as this article, currently up at the top navigation area of the site, shows, they probably won't have any trouble criticizing the WaPo, either.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 7:39 PM on December 21, 2004

I actually paid money a few years ago for a subscription to Slate, and have the umbrella to prove it. I don't read it anymore, though. I've gotten tired of their self-hating liberal act. The only way they could get me to read them again is if they fired that idiot Kaus.
posted by rfs at 5:57 AM on December 22, 2004

An interesting question, had, G-d forbid, Kerry won, would this sale have taken place?

Actually, it probably would have. There were rumblings of this sale weeks before the election.
posted by fredosan at 11:43 AM on December 24, 2004