Slate is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United
States from a liberal perspective.
It was created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the
ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN.
On December 21, 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company, later renamed
the Graham Holdings Company.
Since June 4, 2008, Slate has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity
created by the Graham Holdings Company to develop and manage web-only magazines.
Slate is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C.A French version,
slate.fr, was launched in February 2009 by a group of four journalists, including Jean-Marie
Colombani, 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.Julia Turner replaced David Plotz in July 2014.
Plotz had been editor of Slate since 2008 and deputy editor to Jacob Weisberg, Slate's
editor from 2002 until his designation as the chairman and editor-in-chief of The Slate
Group.
The Washington Post Company's John Alderman is Slate's publisher.
Slate, which is updated throughout the day, covers politics, arts and culture, sports,
and news.
According to 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.Slate is also known (and sometimes
criticized) for adopting self-described "left of center" and contrarian views, giving rise
to the term "Slate Pitches."
It is ad-supported and has been available to read free of charge since 1999, but restricted
access for non-US readers via a metered paywall in 2015.
== 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.
"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-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 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.
Slate was nominated for four digital National Magazine Awards 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 and Timothy Noah (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.Slate's
articles have presented news and opinions from a liberal perspective, eventually evolving
into a self-proclaimed liberal news site.
However, the website claims that writers use factual evidence to back up their claims.
=== Reputation for counterintuitive arguments ("Slate pitches") ===
Since 2006, Slate has been known for publishing contrarian pieces arguing against commonly
held views about a subject, giving rise to the #slatepitches Twitter hashtag in 2009.
The Columbia Journalism Review 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 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."
== Podcasts ==
According to NiemanLab, Slate has been involved in podcasts "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 [Slate's] business"; the magazine charges more for advertising
in its podcasts than in any of its other content.
Slate podcasts have gotten longer over the years.
The original Gabfest ran 15 minutes; by 2012, most ran about 45 minutes.
== Notable contributors and their departments ==
== Other recurring features ==
=== Blogs === Behold, Slate's photo blog
Brow Beat, Slate's culture blog Crime, a crime blog
Future Tense, a technology blog produced as part of a partnership between Slate, the New
America Foundation, and Arizona State University Lexicon Valley, a blog about language
Moneybox, Slate's business and economics blog Outward, Slate's LGBTQ blog
The Eye, a design blog The Vault, Slate's history blog
The World, a blog about foreign affairs Wild Things, Slate's animals blog
XX Factor, a blog about women's issues.
In 2009, it gave rise to Double X, launched by The Slate Group as a separate online magazine
about women's topics, edited by Hanna Rosin and Emily Bazelon, which was folded back into
a Slate.com section after half a year.
=== Summary columns === Slatest (news aggregator)
== Past notable contributors ==
== Company overview ==
=== Key executives === Julia Turner (Editor)
Lowen Liu (Deputy Editor) Josh Levin (Editorial Director)
Allison Benedikt (Executive Editor) Laura Bennett (Features Director)
Forrest Wickman (Culture Editor) Charlie Kammerer (Chief Revenue Officer)
=== Columnists === Reihan Salam
Fred Kaplan (War Stories) Laura Miller
Daniel Mallory Ortberg (Dear Prudence) Dana Stevens (film critic)
Willa Paskin (television critic) Carl Wilson (music critic)
== References ==
== External links == Official website
Slate's French website