Free Republic

Salon, It's Been Good To Know You The Web's premiere journal of news, arts and culture is running on fumes and Editor David Talbot is scrounging for change in the seat cushions. Is Salon roadkill on the infobahn? Or will the last, best hope for smart writing on the Web rise again?   By Katie Caperton No one is picking up the phone at Salon.com. After 20 rings, the receptionist finally answers. &#34No, they don&#39t have time to talk today. All the editors and writers are working on war stories.&#34 I've obviously interrupted her. &#34Just send something to the generic ...

A response to Andrew Sullivan The pundit's charge against Salon cartoonist Carol Lay is just plain wrong. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Scott Rosenberg Dec. 13, 2001 | In an item on his personal Web site headlined "Salon's new low," Andrew Sullivan asks, "Would you run a comic strip that treats the murder of president George W. Bush as a) desirable; b) a joke?" (I would link to it but Sullivan's Web site uses frames in such a clumsy way that linking to individual items is impossible.) As a rhetorical question, this ...

Dr. Dittohead I thought my therapist was brilliant -- until I discovered her love for Rush Limbaugh. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Margot Mifflin April 8, 2004 I was sitting in therapy describing an in-law I like, and quickly heading for a "but." "He's a loving, caring, selfless man -- but his politics are all about hatred," I said. "He's not educated, and more significant, he's ignorant -- he actually listens to Rush Limbaugh." I waited for a "Whoo boy!" or a sympathetic smile, but my shrink just stared at me, expressionless....

Castellanos (inset) in front of screenshots of the Bush-Cheney '04 television ad "100 Days." Going negative He's the father of the modern attack ad, and he's behind the Bush campaign's new wave of anti-Kerry spots. Alex Castellanos is known as vicious, irresponsible -- and effective. - - - - - - -- - - - - By Eric Boehlert March 15, 2004 | The Bush campaign launched its first negative attack ad on television late last week, earlier than in any presidential race in history. For an incumbent president to abandon the elevated surroundings of his White House Rose Garden...

January 15, 2004 Rolling Stone Editor and Adobe Executive Put $800,000 Into Salon Web SiteBy 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...

The media vs. Howard DeanDemocrats haven't voted yet, but reporters have got the story: The former Vermont governor is angry, gaffe-prone and unelectable. How do they know? Republicans, and anonymous Democrats, told them so. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Eric BoehlertJan. 13, 2004  |  When the Washington Post introduced readers to Howard Dean in a long Page 1 feature July 6, part of a series of "meet the Democrats" candidate profiles, the paper went for the jugular, literally, with a cartoonish, unflattering description to open the article: "Howard Dean was angry. Ropy...

The man who solved the Kennedy assassination It wasn't Earl Warren -- or Oliver Stone. His name is G. Robert Blakey. By David Talbot Nov. 22, 2003 | After a week of media overkill triggered by the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the American public is left as bewildered as ever by the "crime of the 20th century." ABC News took the part of the establishment media this time (a role played on past JFK anniversaries by CBS and the New York Times), reassuring us in a two-hour Thursday special report hosted by Peter Jennings that the Warren...

Here is the link: The ReagansYou will need Adobe and a good connection but may be worth it. Report here any "gems" you find.

The Battalion - Opinion Issue: 11/05/03 Biased media coverage causes misconception of Iraq warBy Collins Ezeanyim Last spring, a Battalion columnist argued the then-nascent war in Iraq was theologically unsound. In the column, it was stated there was no reliable evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The column resulted in e-mails from Aggies who disagreed with this fact, despite President George W. Bush telling reporters on Sept. 17, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11," according to The Associated Press.Yet due to biased media coverage of the war, a frustrating number of Americans...

Biased media coverage causes misconception of Iraq war By Collins Ezeanyim Last spring, a Battalion columnist argued the then-nascent war in Iraq was theologically unsound. In the column, it was stated there was no reliable evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The column resulted in e-mails from Aggies who disagreed with this fact, despite President George W. Bush telling reporters on Sept. 17, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11," according to The Associated Press. Yet due to biased media coverage of the war, a frustrating number of Americans continue to believe Iraq...

Craven Broadcasting SystemTV big shots and politicians blast CBS for its cowardly decision to yank the Ronald Reagan miniseries. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Rebecca TraisterNov. 5, 2003  |  Anyone looking for signs of a return of 1980s-era culture wars probably couldn't dream up a better one. At the center of it -- again -- are the Reagans. Only this time, it's "The Reagans," a fictionalized biographical miniseries that was set to air on Nov. 16 and 18, but was dumped by CBS on Tuesday after heated political pressure from the right....

JON FRIEDMAN'S MEDIA WEBSalon seeks a clean financial slate Commentary: Witty Web site thrives on liberal politicsBy Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.comLast Update: 7:31 PM ET Oct. 30, 2003SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- If you do a computer search for news stories about Salon.com, the Internet's self-styled "smart tabloid," the headlines reek of gloom and doom."Salon chief calling it quits after 7 years," screamed the San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 10. Last March, Canada's National Post lamented: "Salon, farewell? The plucky online magazine is facing a death knell -- again." On Feb. 24, the Los Angeles Times declared: "Salon.com's Struggle to Succeed Plays...

The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Struggling online magazine publisher Salon Media Group said its chief executive officer, Michael O'Donnell, is leaving the company after seven years. The San Francisco-based company, which has been battling to survive, gave no reason for O'Donnell's departure in an announcement Thursday. A call to O'Donnell for comment was not immediately returned. O'Donnell will be replaced as CEO by Salon founder David Talbot, who is the company's chairman and editor-in-chief. Elizabeth Hambrecht, Salon's chief financial officer, will inherit O'Donnell's title as president. A former software sales executive, O'Donnell joined Salon as president and publisher...

At a weekend pep rally in Washington, a thousand college Republicans clap, cheer and party -- and reveal a troubling dark side. Just as presidential Svengali Karl Rove, dressed in a light-gray suit and mint-green striped tie, began to speak Friday at a gala dinner for college Republicans in Washington, piercing whistles sounded. A half-dozen protesters had made their way into the auditorium, and they began to chant something inaudible about George Bush and death. Security staffers ejected them within seconds, but even before they were out the door, hundreds of clean-cut collegians were on their feet, shouting "KARL!...

July 4, 2003 | "Slander" is defined in Bouvier's Law Dictionary as "a false defamation (expressed in spoken words, signs, or gestures) which injures the character or reputation of the person defamed." The venerable American legal lexicon goes on to note that such defamatory words are sometimes "actionable in themselves, without proof of special damages," particularly when they impute "guilt of some offence for which the party, if guilty, might be indicted and punished by the criminal courts; as to call a person a 'traitor.'" So how appropriate it is that in the rapidly growing Ann Coulter bibliography, last year's...

PRESS PASS: Salon Behind on its rentSalon.com disclosed June 30 that it has renegiotionated its headquarters lease after getting sued for falling behind on its rent.The company struck a deal with its landlord late last week that will reduce its monthly rent from $70,000.00 to $12,000.00 according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Salon will also forfeit a $400,000.00 deposit and rent just one floor of the offices instead of the two floors covered by the pervious lease.

How the left lost teen spirit Bill Clinton won the youth vote. Al Gore split it with George Bush. Will Democrats realize they must embrace pop culture, not demonize it, to win back the White House? - - - - - - - - - - - - By Andrew O'Hehir June 17, 2003 | Danny Goldberg might be the demon who haunts Bill O'Reilly and Rupert Murdoch's nightmares, even after the visage of Hillary Rodham Clinton has faded. In his new book, "Dispatches From the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit," the veteran music executive proudly confesses...

Dixie Chicked in the heartlandNew York Times reporter Chris Hedges warns the graduates of Rockford College that a warmongering America is "flirting with its own destruction" -- and gets booed off the stage. - - - - - - - - - - - -May 22, 2003  | Editor's note: When New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges, a veteran of conflicts in Central America and the Balkans, delivered the commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Ill., on Saturday, he opened another battlefront in the war at home over America's global role. As Hedges delivered his critical remarks on...

The forbidden truth about Jayson BlairIt's the issue nobody at the New York Times wants to discuss: Were a reporter's flagrant journalistic abuses overlooked because he's black? - - - - - - - - - - - -By Eric BoehlertMay 15, 2003  | In 2000 the New York Times published an ambitious 14-part series, titled "How Race Is Lived in America," examining racial attitudes and experiences as told through the lives of ordinary Americans. The project, produced by a team of 34 staffers over 14 months, ran for six weeks and won the Times a Pulitzer Prize for national...