Saturday, February 22, 2003

An Open Letter to Salon

Dear Salon,
I've read your latest plea for subscriptions and I have some advice. There are two ways to appeal to your readers to fork over some money. The first is to appeal, NPR style, to their good nature and ask them to donate to your noble cause. The second is to provide them with content that can't be found in other general audience publications.

As for the first, I have to say that your continued promotion of incoherent lunatics such as Andrew Sullivan doesn't help the cause much. Aside from making Salon look completely foolish, Andy's presence in your magazine really destroys whatever warm fuzzy feelings your supposedly liberal readership might have. I mean, hey, I could be wrong - I don't have information about your subscribers or your site traffic, but I have a hard time believing that people are really going to pay to read essentially the same drivel - "LIBERALS STUPID AND BAD AND TREASONOUS" - that they can read for free over in his own little sandbox. I subscribe, I encourage others to do so, but I can't really fault their reasons for not doing so.


In addition, there are a lack of gay writers, or at least people openly writing with a gay perspective on issues, in mainstream general audience publications. Choosing to publish Andy, who writes explicitly from a gay perspective, above any other possible writer, is a smack in the face to huge gay population which Andy does not represent. It would be the same as if your only regular writer offering a woman's perspective were an "anti-feminist." I know Sully claims to speak for an oppressed silent majority of conservative gays and lesbians, but that's laughable and we all know it. I don't think nonstop Bush sycophancy plays well with that group, by and large. Way to alienate the base. Suggestion - find a gay writer who has perspective and focus which more closely reflects mainstream gay opinion, and provide and outlet for him/her. Members of groups whose views are underrepresented in the mainstream are desperate to have their perspective reach a wider audience than special interest publications allow. Such folks are usually incredibly grateful whenever this happens, and incredibly loyal.

This reasoning applies across the board. Stop paying to publish people, no matter who good they are, whose stuff can be read elsewhere in mainstream publications- Tina Brown, Arianna, Robert Scheer. Instead, pay some people who AREN'T available in mainstream publications - you'll bring their loyal grateful readers with you.