Happy Birthday, Slate

Slate turned 10 over the weekend, an event that makes me realize both how much things have changed over the past decade and how quickly the time has flown by.  I don't read many general interest sites, but I remain loyal to Slate, partly out of habit, partly because of writers like Christopher Hitchens, Dahlia Lithwick, and Dana Stevens, and partly because I enjoy watching one of our oldest online institutions continue to evolve--and, I might as well add, despite disappointing gaps in coverage (sports and music, for starters) some deadwood that should be cleared away (the Explainer, anyone?  Dear Prudence?) and a baffling refusal to effectively integrate reader feedback, which remains segregated in the navigation-challenged Fray.

Michael Kinsley's look back at Slate's founding highlights just how far we've come:

My original idea, believe it or not, was a publication that you would download and print out once a week. It would have been an inferior version of a print magazine—a bunch of pages stapled together (if you had a stapler nearby).

By the time Slate was launched, we had moved beyond that primitive once-a-week notion. I remember, with some embarrassment, the eureka moment when it dawned on me that an online magazine doesn't have to publish an entire issue at once. Pretty soon, I even figured out that you didn't need to have "issues" at all.

It's worth remembering how Kinsley's move out to Seattle was initially received by most members of the media establishment in Washington and New York ten years ago: they thought he was nuts.  But to me and many others who weren't particularly interested in technology but who were plenty interested in political and cultural journalism, it was an intriguing signal.

I started using email in earnest in 1994, to collaborate with some colleagues on a volunteer consulting project and to plan a motorcycle trip with a friend on the East Coast, and a year later I was just beginning to learn more about the wider world of the Internet.  It was fascinating, but as a non-techie I found the tools hard to use and found it even harder to uncover meaningful information related to the things I really cared about--politics, literature, music, food, art, sports, history.

But the news about Michael Kinsley's project with Microsoft caught my attention.  I admired him as a political and cultural thinker, and I respected him as a thoughtful highbrow with a populist bent.  If someone like Kinsley was getting involved, perhaps the Internet could begin to reflect the richness of the world around us, and perhaps it could be accessible by ordinary, non-technical people.  Of course, many people have contributed to Slate's success, and millions more have participated in the transformation of the Net, but I still mark Kinsley's commitment to the weird, experimental vision of online publishing as an important moment.  Kinsley hasn't been involved in running Slate for five years or so, but I hope he feels a sense of pride and accomplishment, not only for helping to launch a still-running and occasionally-profitable venture, but for helping people like me to see technology's non-technical potential.

tags: slate michael kinsley

Comments

[zhonghuarising]

I completely agree with you about Slate. I too have been a loyal reader since the beginning. I can't believe that 10 years has gone by already! You made some good suggestions about how Slate can be improved; hopefully some of these things are in the works already...

[Ed Batista]

I hope so, but I don't expect much--now that they're embedded in the bosom of the WaPo, change is likely to come very slowly. As long as they don't screw anything up, I'll be happy ;-)

Ed