Rolling Stone Editor and Adobe Executive Put $800,000 Into Salon Web Site (Bad Money After Bad!)

The New York Times ^ | January 15, 2004 | David Carr

[Timesink]

January 15, 2004

Rolling Stone Editor and Adobe Executive Put $800,000 Into Salon Web Site

By DAVID CARR

ann Wenner, the founder and editor of Rolling Stone magazine and chairman of Wenner Media, said yesterday that he would invest $200,000 in the Salon Media Group, the financially struggling Internet media company, and join its board.

Also yesterday, Salon announced that John E. Warnock, co-chairman of Adobe Systems and a longtime financial backer, would invest an additional $600,000 in the Web company.

As part of the alliance with Mr. Wenner, Salon and Rolling Stone, each known for liberal political leanings, will collaborate on a series of articles about the presidential election. "I really like what they have been doing over the years," Mr. Wenner said. "I have been impressed with their journalistic drive and energy. And given that we are gearing up our political coverage, we thought they would be a good partner."

David Talbot, the site's chief executive and editor in chief, said, "This is all part of Salon ramping up its political coverage in a major way for the coming election." In addition to the collaborations with Rolling Stone, Salon has hired Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, as a consultant and columnist.

This week Salon will begin offering a political commentary site, a so-called blog, called the War Room. Mr. Talbot also said that Dave Eggers would serialize his next book - a political satire - on the site beginning this month.

Since Salon began in 1995, the company, based in San Francisco, has received much news media attention for its aggressive political coverage and cultural commentary, but has struggled to find a business model to support its journalistic efforts. The site, which went public in 1999, has yet to make a profit and has an accumulated deficit of more than $80 million. For the six months that ended Sept. 30, Salon had a net loss of $2.5 million on revenue of $2.1 million.

The company has stayed alive because of cash infusions from wealthy supporters who are intent on maintaining Salon's journalistic presence on the Web.

Mr. Wenner, asked why he was investing in a media property that had not shown much promise of turning into a business, first joked.

"The real truth is that everybody was cashing in on this dot-com stuff, and I thought this was my big opportunity," he said. "Really, I wanted to show that I was serious and committed to the partnership, and I think participating as an investor and a board member was a good way to demonstrate that."

The site has 73,000 subscribers to its premium service, which allows visitors, for a fee, to view articles without sitting through banner and pop-up ads, and is aggressively soliciting subscribers through incentives, including a two-for-one subscription offer that features free magazines and free MP3 music downloads.

Mr. Talbot said that the alliance with Rolling Stone was a natural step for Salon, which is eight years old.

"Even though we are an Internet company, we realize that print is not dead," he said. "Rolling Stone has a lot of readers who we are interested in reaching."

[theFIRMbss]

>Jann Wenner, the founder and editor of Rolling Stone magazine and chairman of Wenner Media, said yesterday that he would invest $200,000 in the Salon Media Group, the financially struggling Internet media company, and join its board.

So much for the thought
that the world is defined by
supply and demand ...

Nobody on earth
is demanding more Salon.
But it just won't die!

[antiRepublicrat]

Well, considering Abode's knife-in-the-back mods to their own software packages followed up by support to a turbo-Leftist site, I'd say I'll never purchase another piece of Adobe software.

Adobe has pissed me off several times in the past, from having a programmer who showed the weakness of their eBook products (and allowing fair use) jailed, to the initial InDesign upgrade fiascos and lately the currency recognition.

But there's still no viable replacement for Photoshop for me, and InDesign's only competition is QuarkExpress, which is made by Quark (and Quark doesn't work as seamlessly with Photoshop). Quark is firstly a horrible company with bad licensing and support, but it's also seriously into gay activism due to its gay founder.

[mrustow]

Charity never comes free. I guess Warnock and Wenner will now be cutting the pay of all their illegal nannies, cooks, housekeepers, gardeners and corporate office cleaners, to make up the difference.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Quark is firstly a horrible company with bad licensing and support, but it's also seriously into gay activism due to its gay founder.

I always wondered where the "Q" came from.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[js1138]

Apple computers would pretty much fade away without Photoshop.

[weegee]

They are just buying political advertising in a way that CFR never addressed.

[I_be_tc]

Are the NYT readers so stupid that the paper has to tell them twice how long Salon has been in business. First they said 1995, then a couple of paragraphs later, they were able to deduce that this equates to 8 years. Or else they are just so impressed that it has lasted this long that they had to stress it.

TC

[antiRepublicrat]

Apple computers would pretty much fade away without Photoshop.

And Final Cut Pro and QuarkXpress.

[js1138]

Final Cut and Quark are not Adobe products, but without Photoshop, Quark would be nothing.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I guess compared to a Boy George musical it is a sound investment.

[antiRepublicrat]

Final Cut and Quark are not Adobe products, but without Photoshop, Quark would be nothing.

I think we were talking about software necessary to the life of Apple, at least in the professional world. Quark even without Photoshop is huge, especially in the publishing and newspaper industry. That's one reason for Quark's arrogance and general habit of slapping around the customer, because they've had a virtual monopoly in that area for years.

[litany_of_lies]

The more money the rich lefties put into useless, rarely read, boooorrrrring sites like Salon, the less there will be for other far-left causes that really do damage.

I say "keep shovelling, guys."

Also, I hope their landlord keeps up with the news. Last time I checked, Salon owed a couple hundred thou in back rent.