Talk:Slate (magazine)/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Christopher Hitchens should be removed as a current contributor. 168.166.80.136 (talk) 15:53, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

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Somewhat like a conservative Salon.com

You're kidding. Conservative? Maybe somewhat center-leaning, but I think it leans from the left -- or am I confusing Michael Kinsley's resume with his work? ♥ «Charles A. L.» 18:40, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

Post purchase

I just removed a duplicate mention of the Washington Post purchase. - DavidWBrooks 18:04, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia on Slate

For what it's worth, Paul Boutin just published an article on Slate critiqueing Wikipedia for lack of accuracy. He mentioned various things about the Slate article being wrong...maybe these should be fixed before Slate-users flock over and find he is right? Aerothorn 04:19, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

That's why this article has been vandalized so much in the past couple of days , I believe ... - DavidWBrooks 10:21, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

No, the reason it's been edited so much is that Slate has an inherent bias, which is something that all liberal publications want to hide whenever possible. I watched you revert it twice, so I've given the Editorial Bias its own section. There is nothing wrong with leaving the truth of an organization's bias in its entry.

In the future, if you're worried so much about "vandalization", watch what your liberal cronies keep doing to the George W. Bush presidential entry. Somebody defaced his portrait yesterday and I'll note that you were nowhere near to correct it.ElKabong

Thank for you that calm, adult, blame-free comments; I'm sure you'll be a graceful addition to wikipedia. You will see that I have toned down your section a bit, made it more encyclopedia-ish. As for other vandalism, with 500,000 articles in wikipedia, it's hard for every person to keep track of every one! - DavidWBrooks 13:05, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I believe the section even as edited by you DavidWBrooks is too accusatory and unfair. How evidence do you have that the "choice of topics" or "choice of columnists" is evidence of political bias? Also, I'd have to note that the complainer ElKabong is in trouble for abusive sock-puppetry in the service of labeling most news-outlets as left wing, liberal. 68.100.152.9 19:50, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The evidence is the general tone and approach of most articles and commentaries (which I, a political liberal, read regularly). It's not like there's an objective bias-o-meter that we can point to ("It's at 112 for Slate and minus-47 for Limbaugh!") so a certain amount of interpretation is both necessary and reasonable. - DavidWBrooks 20:50, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So they're conservative on economics and pro-war. Why do they get called liberal again? 18.251.6.156 08:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Some of the columnists are conservative on economics; Daniel Gross, the chief columnist in that area, is not. And while Krugman clearly belongs to the mainstream of econ, in politics he's definitely a moderate liberal. In any case, Slate likes throwing some contrarianism at its readers, most of whom are (judging from its message boarsd) moderate lefties. But the overall consensus certainly favors progressive taxes, gov't subsidized healthcare, and so on. Rmharman 17:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Financial Data

Is there any business or financial info on Slate.com as there is on Salon.com?

I'm not sure, but the place to check would be the Washington Post Company's annual reports. Slate is not (and never has been) an independent business, the way Salon is, so you'd have to look for a breakout on its financials within the larger companies it has been part of: Microsoft (you're unlikely to find anything meaningful, since it's huge, and Slate was already part of a subsidiary, MSN), and now WaPo. Rmharman 17:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Chatterbox (Tim Noah) on Iraq

Please see Chatterbox Goes To War. Rmharman 06:12, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Editorial Stance

I'm don't think I'd classify Slate's stance as Progressive. It's hard to pin these things down, because the terminology evolves pretty rapidly in response to media attitudes, but it seems to me that in current usage, "progressive" refers to people who want the Democratic Party to tack left -- progressives favor single-payer healthcare, openly argue for progressive taxation, want more gov't and corporate transparency, etc. Self-described progressives generally denounce Bush/GOP policies far more vocally than the average Democratic politician. The Progressive Caucus, at least at the CA Dem Convention, seemed to be drawing heavily on the membership of California for Democracy (which is of course an offshoot of the 2004 Dean campaign). Slate is not in this camp; it's pretty blatantly DLC/neo-liberal. (The presence of Bruce Reed as a regular contributor is kind of a giveaway!) I would guess that the only Slate columnist who would comfortably fit in with the current crop of progressives is Tim Noah. "Liberal" remains a reasonable umbrella term for both the neo-liberals and progressives. I'll refrain from making this change immediately, to give time for a response, but if I don't see the response before the next time I check up on my Watchlist (probably a week or two), I plan on reverting "progressive" to "liberal". Cheers, Rmharman 18:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

In the absence of any reply, I am making this change. Rmharman 17:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

That's all right, you're right about that anyway. They're always been pretty much where TNR was under Kinsley, really. Though I think Ms. Lithwick would probably qualify as progressive as well as Mr. Noah.Invisible Cliché 15:59, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

If Slate Magazine is liberal, why does it include the (hilariously) conservative cartoons of Chuck Asay? Am I missing something here, as a casual observer? http://cartoonbox.slate.com/chuckasay/2007/11/02/ 123.200.198.152 10:01, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Slate Magazine is not accepted by the American Liberal Party as a source of Liberal news, nor do they (the magazine) support a liberal view. Slate magazine has a strong Democratic lean, which would make the magazine Centrist, not liberal. Lostinlodos (talk) 09:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The Democrats are not, according to most Americans, "centrist" - they are left of center, just as Republicans are right of center. You can pick your own reference point (radical leftist, it seems, in this case) and declare that moderate left, then redefine moderate left to centrist, redefine centrist to moderate right, and redefine right to radical right, and redefine radical right to radical-to-the-12th-power right, but it's a silly game. Slate is, by any conventional measure, moderately left of center, and the Democratic party is left of center. TJIC (talk) 21:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

For America in the 2010s, Slate is slightly left of center, if a center even exists anymore (I'd personally think it tries to stradle the center; slightly left on some things, slightly right on others). But for the rest of the world---even the other English-speaking countries (which are the most conservative next to the U.S.), Slate is moderately conservative, or center-right, as is the DLC. I would also venture a guess that, if Slate had existed then, it would have been considered considerably right-of-center (at least in economic policy) in America before 1980 or even as late as 1990. Objective standards for political classification DO exist. 173.28.244.122 (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View issue re: Iraq and the War on Terror

Given that there is significant political debate over whether Iraq is part of the War on Terror, or was a distraction from the "real" war (in Afghanistan, and in terms of securing the homeland -- ports, chemical plants, etc), this link seems inappropriate for the NPOV. Rmharman 21:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Former Columns, etc.

Chris Suellentrop used to write Culturebox as well, now he write a NY TimesSelect blog and contributes to Wired.

David Edelstein was Slate's movie critic from 1996 until January of this year, when he moved to New York Magazine and was replaced by Dana Stevens. Stevens no longer writes Surfergirl, TV reviews are now written by Troy Patterson. Invisible Cliché 23:42, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Salon.com reference

What's with the salon.com reference? I'm confused why this is in here. I don't see any reason for a comparison to salon in the opening definition. Can someone explain why this is relevant (and add this to the article) or should this be removed? Timbatron 06:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• For much of their existance Salon and Slate were basically two-of-a-kind publications, and rivals for readers and audience. As of late, Salon has become more bloglike while Slate closer to a news and lifestyle magazine format. Invisible Cliché 15:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Then Shouldn't that be part of the article ?--Milki 20:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I agree. I'd suggest that the remarks on Salon should be moved into the section where the subscription-experiment is discussed. Rmharman 20:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ownership

Article starts "Slate is an online news and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley and owned by Microsoft (as part of MSN). On 21 December 2004, it was purchased by the Washington Post Company." Does that mean it's now owned by the Washington Post Company instead of Microsoft? Can someone clarify and/or fix? Thanks, A bit iffy 16:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's now owned by WaPoCo. I'll have a look at the language you refer to. Auros 22:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Dated article

This article has gotten out of date, especially with the listing of contributors some of whom are no longer frequent contributors (though like Plotz not necessarily gone) or writing different items. Also, it appears to me that the listing is overly generous as to who is notable enough to be mentioned. Before being bold, I thought I'd see if there was some consensus on certain items. I suggest at a minimum that a wikipedia stub exist to count as a "notable contributor" (and Ron Rosenbaum really needs to be listed), although I don't think we should insist on stubs for regular contributors. As for how many contributions should be made to qualify, I'm thinking 4-6 articles at least 1 of which was in the last two years, to make "notable contributors", and at least 4 articles in the last year to be listed as a regular. Slate's search function allows author searches and date sorting, so it shouldn't be too hard to check. Alternately, assuming they do a 2008 listing of staff and their presidential votes, that would be a pretty good test of who Slate thinks their people are. Also, the newer blogs like XX Factor and Trailhead (at least for a few more weeks) should probably be mentioned. Any thoughts? CAVincent (talk) 02:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Free content confusion

"The scheme didn't work; in February 1999, Slate returned to free content, citing both sluggish subscription sales and increased advertising revenue." Shouldn't this sentence say that they switched back to free content because of decreased ad revenues under the subscription scheme? Oughgh (talk) 18:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

URL redirection

In the past few hours, http://www.slate.com/ seems to've begun redirecting straight to http://www.washingtonpost.com/ and URLs inside the site are dead. Is this a temporary glitch or has Slate been shut down? --Gwern (contribs) 19:38 25 March 2010 (GMT)

"Editorial Stance" section is entirely original research

This section is going to need some major sourcing to remove original research and introduce reliable third-party sources or the whole section will have to go. There is no source for any of the subjective claims such as a "neo-liberal point of view", Mickey Kaus's "favorite subjects", taking a "liberal hawk" perspective, "increasingly critical of the war", etc. etc. This analysis seems to have been done by an editor going through these articles. It reads like one person's opinion of slate, but who is that person? The only source for any of this is links to primary sources, articles by various slate contributors, but nowhere is there a link to any reliable third-party analysis. For that matter, even talking about the vote totals is WP:OR as these totals are not presented anyway, an editor apparently went though all of those pages and counted up the total. I'll remove it soon if no sourcing can be found. --Loonymonkey (talk) 15:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

liberal?

Is Slate politically liberal? I believe the general consensus is yes but my research in incomplete. Here's a relevant and entertaining article on the subject. Thoughts? --Nstrauss (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't even think that was in dispute. They've never denied it. Powers ^T 02:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Well we need secondary sources to confirm it, especially for such politically charged matters. --Nstrauss (talk) 22:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)