Ken Layne and Tom Tomorrow are right. Salon should embrace its core readership, dump The Idiocy of the Week that it is Sullivan, and devote their money and resources to being a scrappy partisan webzine. Despite Talbot's regular ode to himself as the lone crusader for independent liberal journalism, and Salon's universal reputation for being a liberal rag, other than Joe Conason there isn't really anyone there who I'd remotely describe as being a partisan liberal. Salon is liberal because it talks about sex, because it leans democratic, in the glory days did some important investigative work attacking the Starr Machine, and it pays lip service to certain supposed liberal values. But, Salon isn't liberal like the Standard is conservative. Joan Walsh never misses a chance to bash the gay rights movement, either directly or through her mouthpiece Sully. Jake Tapper can't discuss Democrats without oozing contempt and disgust. There's no one writing regularly on minority issues. Too much of what they do is the kind of hip snide stuff which works in a partisan magazine, but comes across as irrelevant and pointless in a magazine without a clear editorial viewpoint - you know, we hate everyone so we must be cool.
I'm not saying Salon doesn't have any good stuff. I wouldn't be wasting time writing this if I thought they didn't. But, I know plenty of people who consider their payment to Salon to be similar to their payment to PBS or NPR - a donation. And, many people who would donate don't because of Sully. They want their money to go to paying for investigative journalism that isn't being done elsewhere, and viewpoints that aren't well-represented in other media outlets - web, print, television, or radio. They don't want it going to pay Andrew Sullivan to get offended because some Hollywood celebrity doesn't want war, or his latest accusation that Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They can go to his website, or Instapundit's, if they want that kind of nonsense.
I'm always a bit amused by conservatives who take great glee in the always impending demise of Salon, and mock each new round of funding as throwing good money after bad. It isn't as if any conservative magazine survives without the generosity of donors - The National Review , The Weekly Standard , The Washington Times , along with the various conservative webzines all have generous benefactors. I can't find the figures right now, but if I'm remembering correctly Salon has more annual subscribers than does the Weekly Standard, (and both numbers are exceeded by subscriptions to the Nation). So, judging by that, Salon is surprisingly successful. It's possible they can't survive without donations - either by their readers or by "investors" who aren't expecting to make their money back. But, nor can most political magazines. Given that, it seems obvious that Salon should cater to what the world already thinks is its base - particularly now that their new revenue model lets everyone click-through a few ads to read the content. If that's still in place when my subscription runs out I probably won't renew. Or, if I do I'll consider it a donation - if they're worth donating to.
