Washington Post Buys Slate From Microsoft

securitas writes "The Washington Post has bought online magazine Slate from Microsoft for an undisclosed sum believed to be in the millions of dollars. The sale comes almost five months after Microsoft put Slate on the block (Slashdot) in late July. If you're looking for a perspective from someone other than Slate's editor Jacob Weisberg, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz writes about the sale: 'According to ComScore Media Metrix, washingtonpost.com drew 4.5 million unique visitors last month, while Slate drew 4.8 million.' David Carr reports in the New York Times that Neilsen NetRatings recorded 6 million Slate visitors last month. Either way, Slate's audience is larger than the Post's online edition. You can learn more about the deal from AP via IHT or get streaming audio at NPR (Real|Windows Media)."

Comments

Re:Who reads Slate

[rawket.scientist]

I could never accept that Slate had genuine editorial independence from Microsoft.

Slate did recommend Firefox over IE.

Re:Who reads Slate

[catbutt]

Back in 97 or 98, when the Microsoft trial was in full swing, Slate had the best (and funniest) daily reports from the trial. It made microsoft and their lawyers look like utter fools.

Re:Who reads Slate

[aengblom]

I don't mean to say you shouldn't be aware of the issue (Slate makes it pretty clear they they are owned by Microsoft), but that you should actually think for yourself.

Make a decision based on the reality and not your assumptions. Hell Slate endorsed Firefox just a few months ago and it bashed a big huge Washington Post series this week. (And this has been expected for months.)

Re:Sounds like a bad deal

[aengblom]

And how much of that slate traffic is caused because slate is so tied in to MSN which is the default startpage for 90% of the home computer market?

Much of it. And if you RTFA, you'll find that that partnership has been retained.

This is cool

[sQuEeDeN]

To be honest, I really like Slate. Read it every day. They are really quite independent, like when they bashed IE. This might be quite a non-news item, ultimately (I hope)

Reasons to read Slate

[akratic]

Who reads Slate? I do...obsessively. Some reasons why:

• Dahlia Lithwick's blow-by-blow accounts of Supreme Court arguments provide much more detail and insight than you'll find in a newspaper. Take a look at this report on the medicinal marijuana case .
• "Explainers" provide interesting background information on recent news, such as this article on dioxin poisoning, published after the recent events in the Ukraine.
• Their editorials and analyses are both carefully thought out and bolder than what you'll typically see in print--sometimes to the point of being a bit disturbing, like this article advocating "minimally invasive" interrogation techniques. (For the record, I don't agree with this article, but I found it thought-provoking.)

Slate isn't a substitute for reading a newspaper, but if you want to get more insight into what's going on, it's a good place to look.

Re:Instant hipness?

[value_added]

"...you're buying right into that same allusion that Time Warner ran into."

I hesitate to count the number of mixed metaphors in that statement, but I believe the word you meant to use is "illusion."

Instapundit

[rlp]

I just checked the numbers over at Instapundit and they work out to about 3.8 million visitors per month. So, Microsoft + "professional" journalists = 4.8 million visitors. One law prof + laptop + WiFi = 3.8 million.

Re:How many visitors do independent blogs get?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Taco's journal for /. readership figures.