Salon closed effective immediately after its editorial team was told of the shutdown on Thursday morning.
The closure ends a publication founded in San Francisco
The editorial team received the closure notice on Thursday morning, with the publication’s shutdown effective immediately. Salon’s anniversary falls on November 20, and the closure came weeks before it. The notice gave the team no further publishing period: the stated end point was immediate. The timing places the shutdown close to the publication’s annual milestone, but the notice itself gave no reason for the decision.¹²
Journalist David Talbot started Salon in San Francisco in 1995. The publication later became known as an internet general-interest outlet; the Columbia Journalism Review described it as the oldest general-interest publication on the internet in 2011. That description places Salon’s identity in the history of online publishing, rather than defining it by one particular subject area. Its closure therefore ends a publication whose stated distinction rested on its place on the internet and its broad editorial remit.¹²
Salon’s history included early recognition and a move east
Salon won Time magazine’s website of the year in 1996. Its financial backing included Apple, Adobe and Borders, the bookstore chain that is now defunct. Those details mark two parts of its early history: recognition as a website and support from companies outside its own editorial operation. The available account identifies the backers but does not give figures for the funding or explain how that support affected the publication’s finances.¹²
Journalist David Talbot started Salon in San Francisco in 1995.
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Read More →In the 2000s, Salon moved most of its editorial staff to New York City. The move shifted the centre of most of its editorial operation away from the city where it had been founded. The available information does not specify when during that decade the move took place, how many staff members relocated or whether the entire team moved. It establishes that the change applied to most editorial staff, rather than to every employee.²
Journalists who worked for Salon later became widely known
Steve Kornacki, later identified as a data journalist at NBC News, was at one point Salon’s politics editor. Jake Tapper worked for the publication as a Washington correspondent early in his career. Their roles show the range of work Salon offered: one covered politics as an editor, while the other reported from Washington. The available details do not give dates for either journalist’s time at Salon.¹²
Salon also employed journalists Glenn Greenwald, Joan Walsh and Michelle Goldberg. Their names sit alongside Kornacki and Tapper in the publication’s record of journalists who worked there, although the available information does not specify the positions or dates for these three. Taken together, the named staff and contributors connect Salon’s editorial history to politics, Washington reporting and other journalism, without establishing that every person worked there at the same time.¹²
The publication changed owners before announcing its closure
Salon was sold in August 2019 for $5 million to entrepreneurs Chris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup. The sale provides a clear ownership milestone and a stated price, but the available details do not describe the terms beyond the amount or say what changes followed immediately. Richmond and Schoentrup acquired the publication four years before its next recorded change of ownership.¹²
Find.co, a Malta-based company, bought Salon in November 2023. This followed the 2019 sale and placed the publication under a new owner before the closure notice. The available information does not state the purchase price or describe Find.co’s plans for Salon during its ownership. It records the acquisition and the company’s base, leaving the intervening operating decisions unspecified.¹²
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Read More →Salon’s statement said, “our publishing model is no longer sustainable.” Its announcement also described the publication as “an idea about what journalism could be,” born when the internet was still a largely unexplored frontier. The first statement gives the publication’s stated reason for closing; the second frames its beginnings as an experiment in online journalism. Neither statement supplies financial figures or details about which parts of the publishing model had become unsustainable.¹²
Their names sit alongside Kornacki and Tapper in the publication’s record of journalists who worked there, although the available information does not specify the positions or dates for these three.
Ownership changes signal job risk
When a publication changes hands twice in four years, with a sale price of $5 million in August 2019 and a purchase by a Malta-based company in November 2023, the editorial team's future becomes uncertain. The stated reason for closure, that the publishing model is no longer sustainable, shows that even well-known outlets can shut without warning. If you work in media, track who owns your employer and how often ownership changes, because each sale raises the chance of a sudden shutdown.¹²
Salon's history shows that a strong reputation does not protect jobs. It won Time magazine's website of the year in 1996 and was called the oldest general-interest publication on the internet in 2011, yet it still closed. The editorial team learned of the closure on a Thursday morning, effective immediately, leaving no time to plan. For journalists, this means negotiating severance terms and notice periods in advance, and keeping a portfolio of work ready to show new employers at any time.¹²
Sources
Written by Career Ahead AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify key facts. Report errors to support@careeraheadonline.com
