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readmeReadmePolicy made plain.1NA=1154&NC=9516&DI=4098&PS=58298&PI=7315ReadmefalsefalsespacernotembeddedreadmeNews Junkie SmackdownNews Junkie SmackdownThe first annual Slate News Junkie Smackdown podcast.Tim Egan0The first annual Slate News Junkie Smackdown podcast.After two days trading opinions, impressions, and mild criticisms online, Slate's team of news-consuming guinea pigs tries to hash things out in the recording studio. Tim Egan, Michael Kinsley, Michael Newman, Seth Stevenson, Sam How Verhovek, and Emily Yoffe talk about the difference between news on the Web and news in a newspaper.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno200972051903PMMondayJulJuly177/20/2009 9:19:03 PM6338370714300000002009724101638AMFridayJulJuly107/24/2009 2:16:38 PM633840273980000000readmeMcCain's Last MistakeMichael Kinsley1/123122/2202502/kinsleym.gif424211http://img.slate.com/mediafalse200972364008PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:08 PM633839712081048461200972364008PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:08 PM633839712081048461200972364008PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:08 PM633839712081048461Pfalse2008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM6335984619600000002008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM633598461960000000falseUndivided government won't be as bad as he warned it would be.noMcCain's Last MistakeUndivided government won't be as bad as McCain warned it would be.noJohn McCain's last, desperate argument to the voters was the danger of undivided government. Give the Democrats the White House, both houses of Congress, maybe even a flibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and they will be unstoppable. And then God knows what they'll do.truenotochyperlinkno200811493126PMTuesdayNovNovember2111/5/2008 2:31:26 AM633614310860000000200811493126PMTuesdayNovNovember2111/5/2008 2:31:26 AM633614310860000000readmePoliticians Lie, Numbers Don'tMichael Kinsley1/123122/2202502/kinsleym.gif424211http://img.slate.com/mediafalse200972364009PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:09 PM633839712090571374200972364009PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:09 PM633839712090571374200972364009PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:09 PM633839712090571374Pfalse2008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM6335984619600000002008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM633598461960000000falseAnd the numbers show that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.noPoliticians Lie, Numbers Don'tThe numbers don't lie: Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.noIf you're wondering why a formerly honorable man like John McCain would build his presidential campaign around issues that are simultaneously beside-the-point, trivial, and dishonest (sex education for kindergartners, lipstick on pigs), the numbers presented here may help to solve that mystery. Since the conventions ended, McCain has mired the presidential race in dishonest trivia because he doesn't want it to focus on what voters say is the most important issue this year: the economy.truenotochyperlinkno200891614959PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/16/2008 5:49:59 PM633571697990000000200891614959PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/16/2008 5:49:59 PM633571697990000000readmeNo Experience NecessaryMichael Kinsley1/123122/2202502/kinsleym.gif424211http://img.slate.com/mediafalse200972364010PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:10 PM633839712103657424200972364010PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:10 PM633839712103657424200972364010PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:10 PM633839712103657424Pfalse2008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM6335984619600000002008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM633598461960000000falseHow Sarah Palin made the GOP change its mind about presidential qualifications.noNo Experience NecessaryHow Sarah Palin made the GOP change its mind about presidential qualifications.noIn a famous example of ideological flexibility, the American Communist Party changed its mind completely about Adolf Hitler in 1939, when he signed a deal with Stalin. Previously, they hadn't cared for him much. Suddenly, he looked pretty good. Then two years later, when Hitler ratted on the deal and invaded the Soviet Union, the Communists changed their minds again. Both times, it took only days.truenotochyperlinkno2008831103600AMSundayAugAugust108/31/2008 2:36:00 PM6335577576000000002008831103600AMSundayAugAugust108/31/2008 2:36:00 PM633557757600000000readmeAl Franken's QuandaryMichael Kinsley1/123122/2202502/kinsleym.gif424211http://img.slate.com/mediafalse200972364010PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:10 PM633839712101352762200972364010PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:10 PM633839712101509014200972364010PMThursdayJulJuly187/23/2009 10:40:10 PM633839712101509014Pfalse2008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM6335984619600000002008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM633598461960000000falseThe Minnesota Senate candidate has been telling jokes for 30 years. How does he explain away the bad ones?noAl Franken's QuandaryAl Franken's campaign quandary: how to explain away his bad jokes.noAmericans say they want to be represented by "real people" and not by "professional politicians." But with their votes, they reward professionalism and drain the reality from politics. Real people haven't spent their lives plotting a political career, and therefore real people may have said things from time to time that an aspiring politician would not. Departures from the official script are called gaffes. This election year, the script has been more important than ever. Despite the Iraq war, despite the sinking economy, despite the price of gasoline, we have frittered away our politics in a round robin of gaffes, mock indignation, demands for apology, and more gaffes.truenotochyperlinkno200877115628AMMondayJulJuly117/7/2008 3:56:28 PM633510285880000000200877115628AMMondayJulJuly117/7/2008 3:56:28 PM633510285880000000200311442559PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:25:59 PM631781583590000000200311442559PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:25:59 PM631781583590000000falsetruetruetruetruetruetrue20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001102523300PMThursdayOctOctober1410/25/2001 6:33:00 PM631396171800000000By xMichael KinsleyspacerKinsley, MichaelyeshyperlinkMichaelKinsley1/123122/2202502/kinsleym.gif424211http://img.slate.com/mediafalse200972473853PMFridayJulJuly197/24/2009 11:38:53 PM633840611332308693200972473853PMFridayJulJuly197/24/2009 11:38:53 PM633840611332308693200972473853PMFridayJulJuly197/24/2009 11:38:53 PM633840611332308693P false2008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM6335984619600000002008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM633598461960000000false11Michael Kinsley is a columnist for the Washington Post and the founding editor of Slate. 105USA20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101874310PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:43:10 PM63139030990000000051_Staff Contract200972473853PMFridayJulJuly197/24/2009 11:38:53 PM63384061133215243617020011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM631390436830000000200692273845AMFridaySepSeptember79/22/2006 11:38:45 AM632945075250000000Typos and IPOs Snobs that we are, we like to pretend that we don't think much about Salon, the only roughly comparable magazine on the Web. But the truth is that it does cross our radar screens from time to time. Do we regard Salon as our competition? Yes and no. We are somewhat direct competitors for advertising dollars, but for readership the question is more complicated. The real competition for any publication in any medium is the clock: There are only 24 hours in a day. Strangely, the least competitive rival claimant for those hours is likely to be a similar publication. Print magazines, which depend on direct mail for generating subscriptions, usually find that their best prospects are subscribers to magazines they most closely resemble. Harper's does best with the mailing list of the Atlantic Monthly, and so on. This isn't because people are persuaded to switch, but because someone who has already eaten a blueberry bagel is more likely to eat a strawberry bagel than the average person is to eat a fruit bagel of any sort. In a fledgling medium, similar publications are even more interdependent since the viability of this sort of enterprise is unproved. The cold, hard fact is that we need Salon to prosper and vice versa. The warm, throbbing fact, however, is that we are only human. And rumor has it that they are as well. Human emotions like Schadenfreude--and there must be a German word for reverse Schadenfreude: distress at other people's happiness--inevitably complicate rational business judgment. Despite our best efforts, we couldn't help noticing lately that Salon has announced an IPO. That stands for international poetry Oktoberfest. Just the thing for a political-cultural magazine. No, actually, IPO stands for initial public offering. That is, they're selling stock, a more unusual enterprise for a political-cultural magazine. Two and a half million shares will be offered at about $12 a share. That will raise $30 million, if they pull it off (minus a few million for the midwives). And this is for less than a quarter of the company. At $12 a share, the value of the whole enterprise would be almost $130 million. The editor in chief's shares would be worth more than $6 million. That $130 million would be an astonishing figure for a political-cultural magazine even if it made money. It's about what the queen of the genre, The New Yorker, went for in 1985, when it was still profitable. But Salon is losing money at a rate of $6 million a year and admits that this figure will probably increase. (Salon also claims to be much, much more than a political-cultural magazine, and we intend no insult by describing it as such.) Martin Peretz, the owner of the New Republic, has joked for two decades that he'll only sell TNR for "20 times losses." The owners of Salon are asking even more, and it's no joke. Or at least, it's not only a joke. (Marty Peretz, meanwhile, is seeing his own joke come almost precisely true as co-owner of TheStreet.com, which is losing $16 million a year and is going public at a price that would value the whole company at $300 million.) And what do we at Slate think about this? If we had any sense, we'd be delighted. After all, if Salon is worth $130 million, Slate must be worth ... well, a lot. Maybe more, maybe less, but same ballpark. As a division of a big company, we can't go public ourselves. But a successful Salon IPO certainly will help when it's time to ask Dad for our allowance. Also, our goal is to become profitable. If the Salon IPO works, "the market"--America's answer to the Oracle at Delphi--will have declared its judgment that this sort of thing can become a real, profit-making business. Trouble is, Slate has been ridiculing the Internet bubble all along. (See almost any random Moneybox item for the past six months, or Bruce Gottlieb's recent piece on "Internet eyeballs.") How can we convince ourselves that this one particular IPO is a rational reflection of actual economic potential if all the rest are a reflection of something closer to clinical insanity? The truth is that we can't. The deeper human truth is that we don't especially want to. The good fortune of other people is annoying enough (however good your own fortune may be). At least let us cling to the belief that it is unjustified. Now that we've made our general attitude toward Salon and its IPO perfectly unclear, let us take a look at that IPO prospectus. We were alarmed to discover that it is riddled with typographical errors! Typos are an athema to any high-qualidy publcation. Careless proofreading is a shure sign of inner wroght. Although we certainly do not wish to discourage anyone from investing in Salon, we feel an obligation to inform our readers about these troublesome lapses. They are especially shocking in a formal government filing, vetted by lawyers, in which inaccuracy can result in disastrous lawsuits. And yet: The prospectus reports revenues of $2,058,000 in the nine months ending Dec. 31, 1998. (And $300,000 of that in advertising barter--an ad for an ad--leaving cash revenues of about $1.7 million.) This cannot be right. It is clearly far too low, since David Talbot, Salon's "chairman of the board, editor-in-chief and director," told Newsweek last September that revenues "this year" were $6 million. It might be mathematically possible that Salon had $4 million in revenue during the first three months of 1998 and $2 million in the last nine months, thus $6 million for the year--except that the prospectus also reports revenues of $1.1 million for all 12 months ending March 31, 1998. It is unthinkable, of course, that Talbot--a journalist, as well as commander, grand high executioner, and maximum leader--would have lied to Newsweek. Especially when Salon "executives" gave the same $6 million figure to the Los Angeles Times in June. So, clearly the $2 million figure is a typo. Talbot also told Newsweek that "profits won't come until 1999." This was barely three months before 1999 began. So, the prospectus is surely mistaken in saying that Salon lost $4.3 million from April through December of 1998, and "We expect these operating losses to increase for at least the foreseeable future." Of course, "profits won't come until 1999" doesn't necessarily mean that profits will come in 1999. It depends on what you mean by "until." But Salon told a trade publication called Link-Up in November 1998--just two months before the dawn of bliss--that "Salon is slated [sic] to turn a profit in 1999." It's a disgrace. How could Salon be so sloppy as to report large and growing losses in its prospectus when it actually is already profitable? The prospectus states: "Our revenues depend on a limited number of advertisers and sponsors who are not subject to long-term agreements." And, "We anticipate that our financial results ... will continue to significantly depend on revenues from a small number" of advertisers. The problem here is probably the classic misplaced "not." They mean to say: Our advertisers are subject to long-term agreements, and our financial results will not depend, etc. After all, the January/February Columbia Journalism Review cites Talbot as saying that Salon has "more than 120 advertisers, half long-term." Or maybe CJR is the sloppy one here. Did it omit Talbot's explanation that all those long-term advertisers will contribute insignificant revenues? Here's a real puzzler. Back in 1997, Salon told PC Week that it "gets $60 per 1,000 page views, compared with $20 to $30 for Yahoo" from advertisers because its readership is so classy. And yet Salon's 1999 prospectus refers to "Salon's average CPM [cost per-thousand] of $23"! Has Salon's advertising CPM actually sunk by two-thirds? More likely that $23 is supposed to be an $83 or a $123. On a subject of particular interest to Slate, the prospectus says this about Salon's paid membership program: "As of March 1999, there were approximately 1,050 members enrolled in the Salon Members program." One or two zeros probably were dropped here, as 1,000 members at $25 each would be merely $25,000, and yet Talbot told Columbia Journalism Review in January that revenues from the program were "above what our projections were." Were they projecting fewer than a thousand members? Unlikely. So the truth must be that they have 10,500 or even 105,000 members, since it goes without saying that Talbot could not have been trying to mislead the Columbia Journalism Review. Let us, though, just for the heck of it, consider the possibility that perhaps the prospectus is accurate and all these quotations and citations from Talbot and others at Salon are in error. Is such a thing possible? Although highly unlikely, it's possible, we suppose, that all these distinguished publications repeatedly misheard the same individual in the same way, although he has no speech impediment that we know of. Surely, though, it is impossible to imagine that the Salon folks themselves have been lying, spinning, and covering up. Journalists, after all, expose these practices--we do not commit them. David Talbot has had inspiring things to say about journalists and the truth. In particular, he has spoken of Salon's dedication to a mission of exposing important facts. And he has made pointed comparisons to other Webzines that are allegedly content to sit on their fannies and analyze or summarize. Last fall Salon published the important fact that Henry Hyde had an adulterous affair 30 years ago. Many could not see the importance of this fact, but Salon said it revealed President Clinton's chief congressional accuser as a hypocrite. Those who go around exposing unpleasant facts about other people had better be truth-tellers themselves. Buckling his swash on CNN, Talbot declared: "Fearless journalists, true journalists shouldn't be worried about perception or spin. They should be worried about the truth and concerned about the truth, and that was Salon's guiding principle here." Let's not be sentimental. Let's consider this as a pure business matter. Here is a chairman of the board, editor in chief, and director who is marketing his company as what might be called a "truth play." Truth is his company's Unique Selling Proposition, its market niche, its core competency, its brand value. It would be sheer folly for such a company to invent preposterous lies and spins and feed them to the nation's most prominent publications. That's why the only logical explanation is typographical errors in the prospectus. Thank goodness we don't hav these poblems at Slat.10IPOIPOI10michaelmichaelM10SalonSalonS10SlateSlateS10circulationcirculationC10EditorEditorE10DavidDavidD10programprogramP10kinsleykinsleyK10inaccuraciesinaccuraciesI10membermemberM10ProspectusProspectusP10revenuerevenueR10talbottalbotT1Slate will be launching a new design in a couple of weeks. The changes are less aesthetic than functional. Our editorial concept has evolved for almost three years and our navigation and site organization haven't kept up. This weekend, beginning late Friday afternoon and ending Sunday evening or Monday morning, you can check out the new look and feel (check back later for the URL). We'd greatly appreciate hearing about any specific bugs. General opinions and back-seat driving we'd appreciate somewhat less. But we'll read any comment you'd care to send to editor@slate.com.michael, kinsley, editor, slate, ipo, salon, david, talbot, inaccuracies, prospectus, circulation, revenue, member, program0000false23105falsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalse24519995233000AMSundayMayMay35/2/1999 7:30:00 AM63061212600000000019995233000AMSundayMayMay35/2/1999 7:30:00 AM630612126000000000