Left-leaning news site Salon shuts down after 31 years
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The gist
Salon, the left-leaning news and opinion website, announced it would cease publication after 31 years.
Its closure ends one of the early internet's most influential outlets.
Background
Salon was a left-leaning news and opinion website, one of the early internet's most influential sites, known for politics, arts and culture coverage. It was founded in 1995 by David Talbot, a former San Francisco Examiner editor, along with Gary Kamiya, Andrew Ross, Mignon Khargie, Scott Rosenberg and Laura Miller, after a strike at the Examiner. It gained traction through the Bill Clinton years and during resistance to the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War, and at one point employed nearly 150 workers. Salon said the business realities of independent digital journalism had changed profoundly and its publishing model was no longer sustainable.
How it unfolded
- Nov 20, 1995Salon debuted, founded by David Talbot and others after a strike at the San Francisco Examiner.
- 2018Salon's workers, unionized with WGA East (the Writers Guild of America East), signed their first contract with the guild.
- Nov 2023Privately held media company Find.co acquired Salon.com from previous owners Drew Schoentrup and Chris Richmond.
- Nov 5, 2026Salon announced in a farewell post that it would cease publication after 31 years and go dark later that Thursday.
Key terms
- WGA East
- A labor union representing writers in film, television, radio, news, and online media.
- guild
- A ballot in which workers decide whether their employer must formally recognize and bargain with their trade union.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Salon said its publishing model was no longer sustainable and that the business realities of independent digital journalism had changed profoundly over the years.
- Official
- Salon said it had been an extraordinary privilege and that over three decades it brought together politics, culture, criticism and ideas in a way that was distinctly its own.
Still unverified
The announcement was seen as a surprise, and it did not immediately indicate what would become of Salon's employees, though some reported they had lost their jobs.