Posted on 10/30/2003 7:48:47 PM PST by Timesink
JON FRIEDMAN'S MEDIA WEB
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- If you do a computer search for news stories about Salon.com, the Internet's self-styled "smart tabloid," the headlines reek of gloom and doom.
"Salon chief calling it quits after 7 years," screamed the San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 10. Last March, Canada's National Post lamented: "Salon, farewell? The plucky online magazine is facing a death knell -- again." On Feb. 24, the Los Angeles Times declared: "Salon.com's Struggle to Succeed Plays Out in Unsightly Detail."
Ask David Talbot, Salon's founder and editor-in-chief, about the scuttlebutt and he laughs -- out loud. True, he concedes, San Francisco-based Salon has yet to make a profit. But Talbot, its newly re-installed chief executive, exudes a "What -- Me worry?" outlook.
He's betting that Salon's liberal slant on politics will attract an increased number of subscribers, which number 72,000. Talbot believes that people every bit as willing to pay for good reading on the Web as are devotees of fantasy sports or online gambling or ancestral retrieval or porn.
According to Talbot, about 80 percent of his subscribers pay $35 to get a version of Salon without ads, and most of the rest pay $22 for a site containing some ads. For $6, still another group of subscribers gets access to the site without ads for one month.
Bill Hambrecht, who was a principal of the San Francisco investment-banking firm of Hambrecht & Quist, is a major backer. His daughter, Elizabeth "Betsy" Hambrecht, became Salon's chief financial officer in May. Previously, the younger Hambrecht co-founded Asiacontent.com, a pioneer in Asia's Internet media and advertising industry, and launched Boom.com, a online stock brokerage in Hong Kong.
"The issue of survivability has been removed by our continued financial backing," Talbot said. "The question is how soon Salon will break even."
Talbot is defiantly optimistic. From the windows of his editorial offices in the heart of San Francisco's hip South of Market district, he can see all around him evidence of this city's many failed Internet ventures.
He's looking to next year as a potential boom time, for 2004 is also an election year, and Salon hopes the U.S. presidential campaign will help attract more readers. Salon, he said, "is in discussions with a major magazine publisher to co-finance, co-publish and co-promote at least five investigative stories about the Bush administration and the 2004 election."
Politics is the lifeblood of Salon's coverage.
"We're a progressive, smart tabloid," Talbot said. "I'm trying to reach as wide an audience as possible. We offer a populist, entertaining, shamelessly liberal voice that stands up for the common person. I can't think of an independent daily out there that's headed toward profitability and reaches 3 million people a month."
Of course, even liberals may object to some of its editorial judgment. For instance, does the world really need yet another story featuring feminist icon Camille Paglia, who appeared prominently on the Web site's front page a few days ago? (Salon says the story attracted about double the usual amount of readership traffic.)
On Oct. 22, columnist King Kaufman skewered Fox Sports' Jeanne Zelasko so thoroughly that he sounded more like a bully than a wise pundit. "The woman is incapable of uttering a sentence without a cornball cliché or a groaner of a play on words," Kaufman wrote. "So it's my new pastime to try to guess how that little prose poem that opens the broadcast of each World Series game is going to go."
One of Salon's strengths is its diversity of subjects. On Thursday, its front page featured stories on topics ranging from the Atkins diet to the American left's "long detour" with Communism to the Internet craze of grooms' blogs to Amy Reiter's clever celebrity gossip column "The Fix." There is usually something for everyone on the Salon site.
"We need a type of journalism that unabashedly crusades for progressive solutions to the country's social problems," said Talbot, 52. "I am a registered Democrat, a progressive and a liberal -- whatever you want to call me."
As it happens, Talbot has crafted his strategy by monitoring his political polar opposite: Rupert Murdoch, who hired Roger Ailes to create Fox News, the darling of conservative viewers.
"I think Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes had it right," Talbot said. "There was an audience out there that wanted their brand of journalism and commentary."
But unlike Salon, Fox insists it has no political agenda. "Come on," scoffs Talbot. "I don't know why Fox dances around it -- they're right-wing. We all know it."
Meanwhile, Talbot cringes at what he considers the blandness of the newspapers industry.
"The New York Times and most dailies are still very safe in the way they cover things," Talbot said. He is sorry that Howell Raines, the Times' top editor who resigned in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal last spring.
"Raines momentarily did make the New York Times more colorful and a better read," Talbot said. "It's a banal and timid read. The big picture gets lost."
Talbot calls himself a "fan" of Slate, the arch-rival site, but adds: "Salon seems to do more digging and occasionally investigative reporting while Slate serves up a lot of witty analysis and deconstruction of the news."
Talbot believes that liberal journalism equals good business, and he cited recent books by liberals like Hillary Clinton, Al Franken and Michael Moore have become major bestsellers. "Liberals have to be heartened," Talbot said.
He said he has "put together a smart, pop tabloid (with) entertainment coverage and celebrity dish and sex coverage. That gives us an appeal to a wider audience."
Indeed, Salon has plenty of influential fans.
"I hope they're able to overcome their seemingly perpetual financial problems," said Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. "Salon offers a variety of voices and doesn't mind sprinkling in some sex. So, I find it much less predictable than a lot of sites."
Salon is unfazed by the departure earlier this month of CEO Michael O'Donnell, who stepped down after seven years. O'Donnell couldn't be reached for comment.
"If Michael had left and there had been no one who knew about all the intricacies of the business, it might have been a different story," said senior vice president Patrick Hurley. "But David founded the company. Betsy has had a fast learning curve. We have two very qualified people who have taken up Michael's responsibilities."
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Salon has lost $83.6 million since it was founded and that it has 55 employees -- or one-third the number at its height. "People often lose focus of the context," Hurley said. "This is not an invest-and-flip business. Media companies need a lot of care and feeding along the way until they become profitable."
One year ago, Salon's stock listing was booted off of the Nasdaq because its shares traded under $1 for too long. It's now a bulletin board stock and has been trading at around a nickel a share.
Even so, as it marks its eighth anniversary Nov. 13, Salon has come a long way.
"It's totally mind-blowing," said Managing Editor Scott Rosenberg, 44. "We started as an idealistic group of journalists on the Web. If you'd told me we'd still be doing what we're doing, I would be surprised."
On Monday, The Journal is introducing "Weather Watch," a four-color briefing geared to business travelers. It marks the first time the Journal will publish a weather feature in its news department, and it Accuweather Inc. will produce it.
Is there any doubt that imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery?
Media Web Question of the week: What online site do you look forward to reading? Please send replies to jfriedman@marketwatch.com.
Jon Friedman is media editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com in New York.
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Let's start with idiot...
If McLuhan was right and the media is the message, then the message is the media, whose current configuration seems to indicate (1) that right-of-center succeeds, and (2) that free - the blizzard of blogs across the political spectrum, for example - beats pay-for-play. Salon is doomed on both counts.
Any ideas???
FGS
With a paying base of 70,000 customers at $35 a pop, they can stay in business a lonnnnnng time. If anyone is reading this and hasn't pledged to Freerepublic, please think about doing so.
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