''Slate'' is an
online magazine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer ma ...
that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former ''
New Republic'' editor
Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
as part of
MSN
MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.
The Microsoft Net ...
. In 2004, it was purchased by
The Washington Post Company
Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company) is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware, it was formerly the owner of ''The Washington Post ...
(later renamed the Graham Holdings Company), and since 2008 has been managed by
The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings. ''Slate'' is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C.
''Slate'', which is updated throughout the day, covers politics, arts and culture, sports, and news. According to its former editor-in-chief
Julia Turner, the magazine is "not fundamentally a breaking news source", but rather aimed at helping readers to "analyze and understand and interpret the world" with witty and entertaining writing.
As of mid-2015, it publishes about 1,500 stories per month.
A French version, ''slate.fr'', was launched in February 2009 by a group of four journalists, including
Jean-Marie Colombani
Jean-Marie Colombani (born 7 July 1948 in Dakar, Senegal) is a French journalist, and was the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper ''Le Monde'' from 1994 until 2007.
Biography
Educated at Panthéon-Assas University and Science-Po, he is t ...
, Eric Leser, and economist
Jacques Attali. Among them, the founders hold 50 percent in the publishing company, while The Slate Group holds 15 percent. In 2011, ''slate.fr'' started a separate site covering African news, ''Slate Afrique'', with a Paris-based editorial staff.
the magazine is both ad-supported and has a membership model with a
metered paywall. It is known, and sometimes criticized, for having adopted
contrarian
A contrarian is a person who holds a contrary position, especially a position against the majority.
Investing
A contrarian investing style is based on identifying, and speculating against, movements in stock prices that reflect changes in th ...
views, giving rise to the term "Slate Pitches".
It has a generally
liberal editorial stance.
Background
''Slate'' features regular and semi-regular columns such as ''Explainer, Moneybox, Spectator, Transport'', and ''
Dear Prudence''. Many of the articles are short (less than 2,000 words) and argument-driven. Around 2010, the magazine also began running long-form journalism. Many of the longer stories are an outgrowth of the "Fresca Fellowships", so-called because former editor Plotz liked the soft drink
Fresca
Fresca is a grapefruit-flavored citrus soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. Borrowing the word ''Fresca'' (meaning "fresh") from Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, it was introduced in the United States in 1966. Originally a bottled sugar- ...
. "The idea is that every writer and editor on staff has to spend a month or six weeks a year not doing their regular job, but instead working on a long, ambitious project of some sort," Plotz said in an interview.
''Slate'' introduced a
paywall
A paywall is a method of restricting access to content, with a purchase or a paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their websites as a way to increase revenue after years of ...
-based business model in 1998 that attracted up 20,000 subscribers but was later abandoned.
A similar subscription model was implemented in April 2001 by ''Slate''s independently owned competitor,
Salon.com.
''Slate'' started a daily feature, "Today's Pictures", on November 30, 2005, which featured 15–20 photographs from the archive at
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour (photographer), Davi ...
that share a common theme. The column also features two
Flash animated "Interactive Essays" a month.
On its 10th anniversary, ''Slate'' unveiled a redesigned website. It introduced ''Slate V'' in 2007, an online video magazine with content that relates to or expands upon their written articles. In 2013, the magazine was redesigned under the guidance of design director
Vivian Selbo Vivian Selbo (born 1971) is an American contemporary digital media artist who works as the design director for '' Slate.''Slate.co"Vivian Selbo"/ref>
Background
Selbo graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison
A university () is an i ...
.
''Slate'' was nominated for four digital
National Magazine Awards
The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...
in 2011 and won the
NMA for General Excellence. In the same year, the magazine laid off several high-profile journalists, including co-founder
Jack Shafer
Jack Shafer (born November 14, 1957) is an American journalist who writes about media for '' Politico''. Prior to joining ''Politico'', he worked for Reuters and also edited and wrote the column'' "''Press Box" for ''Slate'', an online magazine. ...
and
Timothy Noah
Timothy Robert Noah (born 1958), an American journalist and author, is a staff writer at ''The New Republic.'' Previously he was labor policy editor for '' Politico'', a contributing writer at MSNBC.com, a senior editor of '' The New Republic'' a ...
(author of the ''Chatterbox'' column).
At the time, it had around 40 full-time editorial staff.
The following year, a dedicated ad sales team was created.
''Slate'' launched the "Slate Book Review" in 2012, a monthly books section edited by Dan Kois.
The next year, ''Slate'' became profitable after preceding years had seen layoffs and falling ad revenues.
In 2014, ''Slate'' introduced a
paywall system called "Slate Plus", offering ad-free podcasts and bonus materials. A year later, it had attracted 9,000 subscribers generating about $500,000 in annual revenue.
''Slate'' moved all content behind a
metered paywall for international readers in June 2015, explaining "our U.S.-based sales team sells primarily to domestic advertisers, many of whom only want to reach a domestic audience. ...The end result is that, outside the United States, we are not covering our costs." At the same time, it was stated that there were no plans for a domestic paywall.
Reputation for counterintuitive arguments ("Slate pitches")
Since 2006,
''Slate'' has been known for publishing
contrarian
A contrarian is a person who holds a contrary position, especially a position against the majority.
Investing
A contrarian investing style is based on identifying, and speculating against, movements in stock prices that reflect changes in th ...
pieces arguing against commonly held views about a subject, giving rise to the #slatepitches Twitter
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...
in 2009.
The ''
Columbia Journalism Review
The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'' has defined ''Slate''
pitches as "an idea that sounds wrong or counterintuitive proposed as though it were the tightest logic ever," and in explaining its success wrote "Readers want to click on Slate Pitches because they want to know what a writer could possibly say that would support their logic".
In 2014, ''Slate''s then editor-in-chief Julia Turner acknowledged a reputation for counterintuitive arguments forms part of ''Slate''
's "distinctive" brand, but argued that the hashtag misrepresents the site's journalism. "We are not looking to argue that up is down and black is white for the sake of being contrarian against all logic or intellectual rigor. But journalism is more interesting when it surprises you either with the conclusions that it reaches or the ways that it reaches them."
In a 2019 article for the site, ''Slate'' contributor Daniel Engber reflected on the changes that had occurred on the site since he started writing for it 15 years previously. He suggested that its original worldview, influenced by its founder Kinsley and described by Engber as "feisty, surprising, debate-club centrist-by-default" and "liberal contrarianism", had shifted towards "a more reliable, left-wing slant", whilst still giving space for heterodox opinions, albeit "tempered by other, graver duties". He argued that this was necessary within the context of a "Manichean age of flagrant cruelty and corruption", although he also acknowledged that it could be "a troubling limitation".
Podcasts
According to NiemanLab, ''Slate'' has been involved in
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
s "almost from the very beginning" of the medium.
Its first podcast offering, released on July 15, 2005, featured selected stories from the site read by Andy Bowers, who had joined ''Slate'' after leaving
NPR in 2003.
By June 2012, ''Slate'' had expanded their lineup to 19 podcasts, with ''Political Gabfest'' and ''Culture Gabfest'' being the most popular.
This count had shrunk to 14 by February 2015, with all receiving six million downloads per month.
The podcasts are "a profitable part of
'Slatesbusiness"; the magazine charges more for advertising in its podcasts than in any of its other content.
* ''Amicus'' – legal commentary
* ''Audio Book Club''
* ''Culture Gabfest''
* ''Daily Podcast'' – some of everything
* ''Decoder Ring'' – with Willa Paskin
* ''The Waves'' (formerly ''DoubleX'') – women's issues
* ''Hang Up and Listen'' – sports
* ''Hit Parade'' – pop music history
* ''If Then'' - technology, Silicon Valley, and tech policy
* ''Lexicon Valley'' – language issues
* ''Manners for the Digital Age''
* ''Mom and Dad Are Fighting'' – parenting
* ''Money'' – business and finance
''One Year''* ''
Political Gabfest''
* ''Spoiler Specials'' – film discussion
* ''
Studio 360
''Studio 360'' was an American weekly public radio program about the arts and culture hosted by novelist Kurt Andersen and produced by Public Radio Exchange (PRX) and ''Slate'' in New York City. The program's stated goal was to "Get inside the ...
'' – pop culture and the arts, in partnership with
Public Radio International
Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States.
PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...
* ''
The Gist''
*
Thirst Aid Kit
*
Slow Burn
* ''Video Podcast''
* ''Trumpcast''
''Slate'' podcasts have gotten longer over the years. The original ''Gabfest'' ran 15 minutes; by 2012, most ran about 45 minutes.
Staff
Jacob Weisberg was ''Slate's'' editor from 2002 until 2008. Weisberg's deputy editor
David Plotz then became editor until July 2014,
when he was replaced by
Julia Turner.
Turner resigned as editor of ''Slate'' in October 2018.
[
]
Jared Hohlt became editor-in-chief on April 1, 2019.
He stepped down in January 2022.
Hillary Frey was named new editor in chief in May 2022.
Key executives
* Hillary Frey (editor in chief)
* Dan Check (chief executive officer)
* Charlie Kammerer (chief revenue officer)
* Lowen Liu (deputy editor)
*
Josh Levin (editorial director)
* Allison Benedikt (executive editor)
* Susan Matthews (news director)
* Laura Bennett (features director)
* Jeffrey Bloomer (features editor)
* Forrest Wickman (culture editor)
Notable contributors and departments
*
Anne Applebaum (Foreigners)
*
John Dickerson (Politics)
*
Simon Doonan (Fashion)
*
Stefan Fatsis
Stefan Fatsis (; born April 1, 1963) is an author and journalist. He regularly appears as a guest on National Public Radio's ''All Things Considered'' daily radio news program and as a panelist on Slate's sports podcast '' Hang Up and Listen''. ...
(Hang Up and Listen)
*
Ashley Feinberg (Politics)
*
Daniel Gross (The Juice)
*
Fred Kaplan (War Stories)
*
Juliet Lapidos (Books / Explainer / Brow Beat)
*
Dahlia Lithwick (Jurisprudence)
*
Michael Moran (Reckoning / Foreign Policy)
*
Timothy Noah
Timothy Robert Noah (born 1958), an American journalist and author, is a staff writer at ''The New Republic.'' Previously he was labor policy editor for '' Politico'', a contributing writer at MSNBC.com, a senior editor of '' The New Republic'' a ...
(The Customer)
*
Meghan O'Rourke (The Highbrow / Grieving)
*
Daniel M. Lavery (
Dear Prudence, since 2015
)
*
Mike Pesca (The Gist)
*
Robert Pinsky (poetry editor)
*
Phil Plait
Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964), also known as The Bad Astronomer, is an American astronomer, skeptic, and popular science blogger. Plait has worked as part of the Hubble Space Telescope team, images and spectra of astronomical objec ...
(Bad Astronomy / Science)
*
Ron Rosenbaum (Spectator)
*
William Saletan (Human Nature)
*
Jack Shafer
Jack Shafer (born November 14, 1957) is an American journalist who writes about media for '' Politico''. Prior to joining ''Politico'', he worked for Reuters and also edited and wrote the column'' "''Press Box" for ''Slate'', an online magazine. ...
(Press Box)
*
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 54th governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008.
Spitzer was born in New York City, attended P ...
(The Best Policy)
*
Mike Steinberger
Michael Steinberger is an American author and journalist, who served as the wine columnist of the internet magazine '' Slate'' from 2002 to 2011.Colman, Tyler, drvino.com (August 25, 2011)The budgetary ax cuts Slate’s wine column/ref>
He has b ...
(Drink)
*
Dana Stevens (Surfergirl through 2005/Movies)
*
Seth Stevenson (Ad Report Card / Well-Traveled)
*
James Surowiecki
James Michael Surowiecki ( ; born April 30, 1967) is an American journalist. He was a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'', where he wrote a regular column on business and finance called "The Financial Page".
Background
Surowiecki was born in Meri ...
(The Book Club)
*
Leon Neyfakh (Podcast)
*
Tom Vanderbilt
Tom Vanderbilt (born 1968) is an American journalist, blogger, and author of the best-selling book, ''Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)''.
His traffic book was published on November 13 2009, made in various parts of ...
(Transport)
*
Jacob Weisberg (The Big Idea)
*
Tim Wu (Technology/Jurisprudence)
*
Emily Yoffe (
Dear Prudence - until 2015 -, Human Guinea-pig)
[
* Reihan Salam (Politics)
* Laura Miller (Books and Culture)
* ]Carl Wilson
Carl Dean Wilson (December 21, 1946 – February 6, 1998) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their lead guitar
Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in ...
(Music)
Past contributors
* Emily Bazelon
* Pete Buttigieg
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( ; ; Sometimes pronounced or , but not by Buttigieg himself. born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former military officer who is currently serving as the United States secretary of transp ...
* Paul Boutin
* Ian Bremmer
* Phil Carter
* David Edelstein
* Franklin Foer
* Sasha Frere-Jones
* Atul Gawande
* Austan Goolsbee
* Robert Lane Greene
* Virginia Heffernan
* David Helvarg
* Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
* Jodi Kantor
* Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael "Mickey" Kaus (; born July 6, 1951) is an American journalist, pundit, and author, known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on ''Slate'' until 2010. Kaus is the author of ''The End of Equality'' and ...
* Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe (born 1976) is an American writer and investigative journalist. He is the author of five books—''Chatter,'' ''The Snakehead,'' '' Say Nothing,'' ''Empire of Pain,'' and ''Rogues''—and has written extensively for many publ ...
* Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was t ...
* Steven Landsburg
* Will Leitch
* Farhad Manjoo
* Louis Menand
Louis Menand (; born January 21, 1952) is an American critic, essayist, and professor, best known for his Pulitzer-winning book '' The Metaphysical Club'' (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America.
...
* David Plotz
* Daniel Radosh
Daniel Radosh (born 23 March 1969) is an American journalist and blogger. Radosh is a senior writer for ''The Daily Show with Trevor Noah''. Previously, he was a staff writer for ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and'' a contributing editor at '' ...
* Bruce Reed
* Jody Rosen
* Herbert Stein
* James Surowiecki
James Michael Surowiecki ( ; born April 30, 1967) is an American journalist. He was a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'', where he wrote a regular column on business and finance called "The Financial Page".
Background
Surowiecki was born in Meri ...
* Julia Turner
* Josh Voorhees
* Rob Walker
* David Weigel
David Weigel (born September 26, 1981) is an American journalist. He works for ''Semafor''. Weigel previously covered politics for ''The Washington Post,'' ''Slate,'' and ''Bloomberg Politics'' and is a contributing editor for ''Reason'' magaz ...
* Robert Wright
* Matthew Yglesias
* Fareed Zakaria
Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (; born 20 January 1964) is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's ''Fareed Zakaria GPS'' and writes a weekly paid column for ''The Washington Post.'' He has been a columnist ...
Other recurring features
* Assessment
* Books
* Dear Prudence (advice column)
* Dispatches
* Drink
* Food
* Foreigners
* Gaming
* Science Denial
* Shopping
* The Good Word (language)
* The Movie Club
* The TV Club
Summary columns
* Slatest (news aggregator
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, ...
)
References
External links
*
''Slate''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slate (magazine)
Online magazines published in the United States
Magazines established in 1996
Political magazines published in the United States
Cultural magazines published in the United States
Magazines published in New York City
American political websites
Podcasting companies