This is really good and worth reading. Important thing to understand: like Newsweek, Salon is (was) a zombie brand, as much an SEO play as anything else.
We need as many news organizations as we can get imo. I used to read them in the 2000s. The tone kept shifting towards negativity and vitriol and reporting perception of intentions rather than facts. Not surprised they are winding down.
Punditry is a kind of journalism, but far from the most important kind; what people get from Salon today they can get better from a hundred different newsletters.
That is a massive shame, although I stopped reading it a very long time ago, but I have fabulous memories of the place, when Patrick Smith's Ask The Pilot and Cary Tennis' Since You Asked were wonderful staples of my week.
Wow. I'm honestly shocked by this. It's been a mainstay for so long. It's as ad-riddled as other news sites, is it that ad blockers finally did them in?
I think what did them in is that they would not allow you to subscribe without handing over a ton of personal info. I don't remember the details, but I wanted to subscribe in order to support them, but when I tried the process had so much friction that I just gave up. And this is not unique to Salon. I am continually astounded at how many organizations put up intentional obstacles to giving them money.
I expect a lot more of this, partly for the monetization issue, but also because these sites went all-in on SEO and then Google AI ate their lunch. Who wants to pore over a 3 page rambling “article” that contains one or two sentences of useful info when an LLM can read and summarize it?
A whole class of site is on the chopping block as ad revenue and clicks dry up. For actual journalism worth paying for increasingly paywalls are popping up to compensate for these factors.
> I expect a lot more of this, partly for the monetization issue, but also because these sites went all-in on SEO and then Google AI ate their lunch. Who wants to pore over a 3 page rambling “article” that contains one or two sentences of useful info when an LLM can read and summarize it?
I don't understand this viewpoint at all. I follow specific writers for their voice, not in spite of it. A whole lot of people seem to be hallucinating this past moment in history when news was strictly factual information, delivered with no editorializing, from people who had no opinions or ideas, and I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. Walter Cronkite would frequently editorialize about events he was reporting. All the major historical men and women of news would, that's... the point, you're not just tuning in to know what happened today, you're tuning in to experience those events through the eyes of someone you've at least got some vague trust relationship with.
And I categorically reject any notion that it's better to get a summary via AI. I can clock articles written with heavy AI use and I dislike their monotone and... well, inhuman writing style. Frequently, especially as of late, current events need the touch of an empathetic human with their own ideas.
If you require your news filtered through a bias-remover, IMO you just lack media literacy. I can read something from someone I disagree with on basically everything and still get the facts out of it. Frankly: skill issue.
Is it just me or do others feel like this is a "buy me" ad and inevitably someone will purchase the brand at firesale and do something else with it? Didn't that already happen in the past with Salon?
as a young'un, i've only ever known salon as calorie-free partisan nonsense. i have at least vague memory of when VICE was good, and would be sad if they dissolved, but the same does not apply here.
This article didn't generate any comments when it made the rounds 10 years ago. An obituary for what salon.com used to be.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210219012551/https://www.polit...
This is really good and worth reading. Important thing to understand: like Newsweek, Salon is (was) a zombie brand, as much an SEO play as anything else.
We need as many news organizations as we can get imo. I used to read them in the 2000s. The tone kept shifting towards negativity and vitriol and reporting perception of intentions rather than facts. Not surprised they are winding down.
meh
Independent journalism shutting down is really tragic. One of the OG internet publications.
Punditry is a kind of journalism, but far from the most important kind; what people get from Salon today they can get better from a hundred different newsletters.
That is a massive shame, although I stopped reading it a very long time ago, but I have fabulous memories of the place, when Patrick Smith's Ask The Pilot and Cary Tennis' Since You Asked were wonderful staples of my week.
> That is a massive shame, although I stopped reading it a very long time ago...
That why Salon is disappearing. I used to read it, and I thought it disappeared around the time Brill's Content and The Standard went under.
I haven't seen Salon in a Google search result in years.
Wow. I'm honestly shocked by this. It's been a mainstay for so long. It's as ad-riddled as other news sites, is it that ad blockers finally did them in?
I think what did them in is that they would not allow you to subscribe without handing over a ton of personal info. I don't remember the details, but I wanted to subscribe in order to support them, but when I tried the process had so much friction that I just gave up. And this is not unique to Salon. I am continually astounded at how many organizations put up intentional obstacles to giving them money.
They've gotten hooked on the data sales revenue. It's now expected that you'll both give them the money and the information.
It's pretty much everywhere. I just assume it of apps on my phone.
I expect a lot more of this, partly for the monetization issue, but also because these sites went all-in on SEO and then Google AI ate their lunch. Who wants to pore over a 3 page rambling “article” that contains one or two sentences of useful info when an LLM can read and summarize it?
A whole class of site is on the chopping block as ad revenue and clicks dry up. For actual journalism worth paying for increasingly paywalls are popping up to compensate for these factors.
Oh I for sure see this in my day job.
Us: "Here Google, I've done your bidding to earn higher placement in your search engine"
Google: "Thanks for all the data, idiot. Now we'll show it on our site and claim it as ours"
Our organic traffic is WAY down despite nonstop kowtowing to their demands.
> I expect a lot more of this, partly for the monetization issue, but also because these sites went all-in on SEO and then Google AI ate their lunch. Who wants to pore over a 3 page rambling “article” that contains one or two sentences of useful info when an LLM can read and summarize it?
I don't understand this viewpoint at all. I follow specific writers for their voice, not in spite of it. A whole lot of people seem to be hallucinating this past moment in history when news was strictly factual information, delivered with no editorializing, from people who had no opinions or ideas, and I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. Walter Cronkite would frequently editorialize about events he was reporting. All the major historical men and women of news would, that's... the point, you're not just tuning in to know what happened today, you're tuning in to experience those events through the eyes of someone you've at least got some vague trust relationship with.
And I categorically reject any notion that it's better to get a summary via AI. I can clock articles written with heavy AI use and I dislike their monotone and... well, inhuman writing style. Frequently, especially as of late, current events need the touch of an empathetic human with their own ideas.
If you require your news filtered through a bias-remover, IMO you just lack media literacy. I can read something from someone I disagree with on basically everything and still get the facts out of it. Frankly: skill issue.
Is it just me or do others feel like this is a "buy me" ad and inevitably someone will purchase the brand at firesale and do something else with it? Didn't that already happen in the past with Salon?
Unfortunate. Read them occasionally and enjoyed it.
Broadly paywalled, stopped reading afterwards. But yes, once they were great. I blame society(tm).
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No kidding! The whole front page is a wall of Trump.
as a young'un, i've only ever known salon as calorie-free partisan nonsense. i have at least vague memory of when VICE was good, and would be sad if they dissolved, but the same does not apply here.