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Type of site | News website |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner |
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| Created by |
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| Editor | Joseph Neese (Editor in Chief) |
| Key people | Mendel Benoit (CEO of Find.co) Amanda Wolfe (General Manager) Erin Keane (Chief Content Officer) |
| URL | salon |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | April 18, 1995; 30 years ago (1995-04-18)[2] |
| Current status | Online |
| OCLC 43916723 | |
Salon is an Americanpolitically progressive andliberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles onU.S. politics, culture, and current events.[3][4][5][6]
Salon covers a variety of topics, including entertainment and culture, and food, with a particular focus on U.S. politics from a liberal and progressive point of view. Salon's web presence includes a YouTube channel, where it produces the show and podcast Standing Room Only with Amanda Marcotte, among other content.[7]
According to the senior contributing writer for theAmerican Journalism Review, Paul Farhi,Salon offers "provocative (if predictably liberal) political commentary and lots of sex."[8]
In 2008,Salon launched the interactive initiativeOpen Salon, a social content site/blog network for its readers. Originally a curated site with some of its content being featured onSalon, it fell into editorial neglect and was closed in March 2015.[9]
Responding to the question, "How far do you go with thetabloid sensibility to get readers?," former Salon.com editor-in-chiefDavid Talbot said:
IsSalon more tabloid-like? Yeah, we've made no secret of that. I've said all along that our formula here is that we're a smart tabloid. If by tabloid what you mean is you're trying to reach a popular audience, trying to write topics that are viscerally important to a readership, whether it's the story aboutthe mother in Houston who drowned her five children or the story on the missing intern in Washington,Chandra Levy.[10]
Salon.com, originally salon1999.com, was founded in 1995 byDavid Talbot,Gary Kamiya, Andrew Ross, Mignon Khargie,Scott Rosenberg, andLaura Miller.[11]
Regular contributors have included the political-opinion writersAmanda Marcotte, Scott Eric Kaufman,Heather Digby Parton andSean Illing, critic Andrew O'Hehir and pop-culture columnistMary Elizabeth Williams.
David Talbot, founder and original editor-in-chief, also served several stints as CEO,[12] most recently replacingRichard Gingras, who left to joinGoogle as head of news products in July 2011.[13]Joan Walsh was the second editor-in-chief, serving in that role starting in 2005.[14] She stepped down as editor-in-chief in November 2010 and was replaced byKerry Lauerman.[15] David Daley took over the editor-in-chief position in June 2013.[16][17]
Jordan Hoffner took over as CEO in May 2016, also serving as editor-in-chief.[18] He resigned in May 2019, and was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Erin Keane.
As of September 2024,[update] Amanda Wolfe is General Manager of Salon, Erin Keane is Chief Content Officer, and Joseph Neese is Editor In Chief.[19]
Salon was created in the wake of theSan Francisco newspaper strike of 1994, by formerSan Francisco Examiner arts and features editorDavid Talbot who wished to explore the potential ofWeb.[20][21] It launched as salonmag.com[22] in November 1995. In its early days, readers noticed a specifically Northern California flavor. In 1996, Talbot agreed: "We swim in the soup of San Francisco. There are a lot of odd fish we've plucked out of the bay here and it gives us some of that Left Coast, Weird Coast style."[23]Time magazine named it one of the Best Web Sites of 1996.[24]
Salon purchased thevirtual communityThe WELL in April 1999 (switching to its current URL, salon.com, at roughly that time), and made itsinitial public offering (IPO) of Salon.com on theNASDAQ stock exchange on June 22 of that year.[25] Subsequently, for the month of October 1999,Nielsen/NetRatings reported thatSalon had over two million users.[26]
Salon Premium, a pay-to-view (online) content subscription was introduced on April 25, 2001. The service signed up 130,000 subscribers and staved off discontinuation of services. However, in November 2002, the company announced it had accumulated cash and non-cash losses of $80 million, and by February 2003 it was having difficulty paying its rent and made an appeal for donations to keep the company running.
On October 9, 2003, Michael O'Donnell, thechief executive and president of Salon Media Group, said he was leaving the company after seven years because it was "time for a change." When he left, Salon.com had accrued $83.6 million in losses since its inception, and its stock traded for 5¢ on theOTC Bulletin Board. David Talbot,Salon's chairman and editor-in-chief at the time, became the new chief executive. Elizabeth "Betsy" Hambrecht, thenSalon'schief financial officer, became the president.[27]
In July 2008,Salon launchedOpen Salon, a "social content site" and "curated blog network".[28] It was nominated for a 2009 National Magazine Award[29] in the category "best interactive feature." On March 9, 2015,Salon announced it would be closingOpen Salon after six years of hosting a community of writers and bloggers.[9]
Salon closed its online chat board "Table Talk" on June 10, 2011, without stating an official reason for ending that section of the site.[30]
On July 16, 2012,Salon announced that it would be featuring content fromMondoweiss.[31]
Salon Media Group soldThe WELL to the group of members in September 2012.[32]
Salon has been unprofitable through its entire history.[citation needed] Since 2007, the company has been dependent upon repeated cash injections from board ChairmanJohn Warnock andWilliam Hambrecht, father of formerSalon CEO Elizabeth Hambrecht.[33][34][35][36] During the nine months ending on December 31, 2012, these cash contributions amounted to $3.4 million, compared to revenue in the same period of $2.7 million.[37] In December 2016 and January 2017, the company was evicted from its New York offices at 132 West 31st Street, a block fromMadison Square Garden, for non-payment of $90,000 in back rent.[38][39] In February 2017, Spear Point Capital invested $1 million into Salon, taking a 29% equity stake and three seats on the company's board.[40] On August 30, 2019, Salon.com was sold for $5 million by Salon Media Group (Expert Market: SLNM) to privately held Salon.com, LLC, which is owned byChris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup.[41][42]
Aspects of the Salon.com site offerings, ordered by advancing date:
An article called "Deadly Immunity" written byRobert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared inSalon and simultaneously in the July 14, 2005 issue ofRolling Stone.[44] The article focused on the2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference and claimed thatthimerosal-containing vaccines caused autism,[45][46] The article was retracted bySalon on January 16, 2011, in response to criticism.[47]
In March 2016, while American touristOtto Warmbier was imprisoned inNorth Korea for allegedly trying to steal apropaganda poster there, the site posted an article about him headed: "This might be America's biggest idiot frat boy: Meet theUVa student who thought he could pull a prank in North Korea."[48] After Warmbier's death, the article was removed.[49][50]
In September 2015,Salon published an article written by Todd Nickerson, moderator ofVirtuous Pedophiles, about his experiences with being a non-offendingpedophile, titled: "I'm a pedophile, but not a monster."[51] This caused controversy at the time, with some commentators accusing it of being "pro-pedophile" (in the sense of being pro-child sexual abuse).[52][53] This article and a follow-up[54] were deleted in early 2017. Some saw a connection between their removal and the controversy surroundingMilo Yiannopoulos'sremarks on child sexual abuse that emerged in February 2017,[52] although Salon Media Group CEO andSalon acting editor-in-chief Jordan Hoffner toldNew York magazine that they had been removed in January 2017 due to "new editorial policies."[52] A third article by sex researcherDebra Soh defending Nickerson's side is still published as of May 2025.[55]
In February 2018, it was noted thatSalon was preventing readers usingad blockers from seeing its content. Such users are offered a choice of disabling their blocker, or allowingSalon to run an in-browser script, using the user's resources, to mineMonero, a form of cryptocurrency.[56][57]
On June 23, 2021,Salon published an article with a headline falsely claiming that a bill signed by Florida GovernorRon DeSantis would force Florida students and professors to register their political views with the state ofFlorida. The article went viral on Twitter and its false claim was promoted by various Democratic commentators, including Florida Commissioner of AgricultureNikki Fried. In 2022,Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir said thatSalon had recently concluded that the headline "conveyed a misleading impression of what the Florida law actually said, and did not live up to our editorial standards", and the headline was changed. DeSantis spokespersonChristina Pushaw said that her colleagues had tried unsuccessfully to getSalon to change the headline in 2021, adding: "It's good to see thatSalon finally changed its false headline after the pushback they received yesterday. It should have happened much sooner. Better yet, theSalon reporter and editors should have read the legislation before writing an article about it (a good practice for journalism, in general!)."[58][59]
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