Salon

Today on Salon, Rebecca Traister looks at how daytime television—particularly The View, Ellen, and The Rachael Ray Show—is impacting the election.

Writes Ms. Traister:

Credit Sarah Palin, or Hillary Clinton, or unprecedented excitement over the historic candidacy of Barack Obama and appreciation for his exceptionally appealing wife. Maybe it’s the panic about the financial crisis, outrage at the mishandling of the war, fury over gas prices, worries about the environment — all of which are so powerful that they’re causing the election to seep into unexpected cultural corners, like Us Weekly and porn. Whatever the reason, daytime talk shows have showcased some of the most sophisticated (as well as some of the most mind-numbingly stupid) conversations about what’s happening on the political stage this season.  read more »

Yesterday on Salon, Sarah Hepola profiled writer Chuck Klosterman for the release of his first novel, Downtown Owl.

After hashing out Mr. Klosterman's rise from obscurity to admired and derided cultural critic, Ms. Hepola writes:

But Chuck Klosterman seems to be getting a little sick of Chuck Klosterman. Even his most distinguishing quality—his ability to ramble endlessly, but meaningfully, about the ephemera of American culture—is wearing on him these days. In his September 2008 column for Esquire, he writes, 'I find myself growing more and more depressed about all the things I used to love ... It's not difficult to be the cop in the car watching the meth lab, but you will drive yourself sad. You'll find yourself thinking, Maybe the meth lab will blow up ... But it doesn't blow up. It just sits there, falling apart and declining in value, while the people inside lose their teeth and get crazy high.'

He's no longer going to be writing his Esquire column, by the way.

Will readers really have to live without Mr. Klosterman's observations on everything from Snakes on a Plane to different lighting schemes used by television networks?  read more »

David Carr must be one busy man this month. In an interview with Salon's Andrew O'Herir, Mr. Carr, The New York Times media columnist and author of the recently released book, The Night of Gun, says that he "got 1,200 e-mails when an excerpt of the book ran in The New York Times Magazine, and a lot of them were from people seeking recovery."

We know from Jennifer Senior's profile of Mr. Carr in this week's New York magazine that he probably felt compelled to answer them all since:

When he recently wrote a media column slamming Fox News, he got 450 e-mails, and he answered each and every one.  read more »

Today on Salon, Sarah Bird pens a humor piece in which she wishes her son were gay.

With palpable yearning, Ms. Bird writes:

How could I not dream of having a son who cared deeply about all the right things: fashion, musical theater, interior décor? But mostly a son who cared deeply about the most right thing of all: his mother? How could I not yearn for a son who would tell me that the bias cut emphasized my saddlebag thighs, that no one was staining concrete anymore, that the tiniest bit of white on the upper lids would open up my eyes and make me look 10 years younger?

Sadly, she finds herself stuck with a straight kid.  read more »

Yesterday, Salon published a piece by writer Neal Pollack about his experiences with this year's moral panic-inspiring quasi-legal drug, salvia divinorum, in a piece called Confessions of a Salvia Eater.

Fans of Mr. Pollack will no doubt enjoy his description of what he saw on the other side:

I put the salvia in my freezer and didn't touch it for almost two years. Then I had a free midnight, and it occurred to me to try some. ... Almost immediately, I had visions. ... The next night, I repeated the dose. While I had a few small visions, I mostly felt that my body was stretching out beyond its boundaries, moving into infinite space.  read more »

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Salon's Vincent Rossmeier has an interview with Kerwin Swint, biographer of Fox news Godfather Roger Ailes. Mr. Swint, a Professor of Political Science Kennesaw State University, says he "couldn't believe that no one had written a book on him yet. He's been such a central figure for so long."

In 2003, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta described Mr. Ailes as "a man of Falstaffian girth... Ailes is sixty-three and does not look immediately fearsome. He says he is five feet nine inches tall and weighs two hundred and twenty-five pounds; his jowls droop over his collar. With his pallor and barely perceptible eyebrows, Ailes looks like someone who has spent a lifetime under fluorescent lights.  read more »

Yesterday on Fox News—America's Election HQ!—Megyn Kelly interviewed Fox News contributor and New Yorker profile rejecter Michelle Malkin about potential First Lady Michelle Obama. During the course of her echo chamber-like criticism of Ms. Obama (that's not a metaphor: someone should've checked Ms. Malkin's mic before putting her on air), Ms. Malkin said, "it's not just Republicans who are criticizing some of her comments, but also statements have been made in the left-leaning blog Salon about her comments."

That darn Salon!

Not so fast, Ms. Malkin. Alex Koppelman, Salon's War Room blogger, searched his site and couldn't turn up "anything like what Malkin is talking about." After posting a clip of her appearance and emailing Ms. Malkin, he solved the mystery:

Malkin responded to my e-mail; she says she misspoke and that she meant to refer to Slate, not Salon.

Let's call it the narcissism of minor differences.  read more »

Politico has hired Salon senior writer Tim Grieve to become their new Congressional bureau chief. According to a memo sent out this morning by Jim VandeHei, Mr. Grieve "is a terrific writer, editor and conceptual thinker." Over at Salon, he ran The War Room blog.

Gawker catches Salon in an embarrassing (and pretty funny) gaffe: The online mag recently got in touch with "some of their favorite experts and opinion-makers" and asked for their thoughts on the presidential race. But in trying to contact Savage Love writer and all-around alt-weekly bigshot Dan Savage, they accidentally contacted this Dan Savage.

Salon didn't realize its mistake even when they got back a barely readable response (Gawker has the screengrab) which included the observation that Hilary Clinton "has no penis ... as far as we know" -- which they briefly posted.

We had the same thought as New York magazine when we saw this front-page New York Times story by Adam Nagourney on the abortive Hillary-Rudy Senate race of 2000: Didn't Salon write that story yesterday?

Actually, the duelling pieces raise a broader issue.  Given the pace of modern-day campaign coverage, and the sheer number of reporters, bloggers, and YouTube posters capable of providing up-to-the-minute reports from the trail, it obviously makes sense for The Times to shift toward using its resources to offer deeper, more in-depth coverage--like today's front-pager--while using its blog to keep up with the daily back-and-forth.  And that's what it seems to have been doing this time around.  But if these deeper pieces, too, are increasingly being done by alternative outlets, what, besides access to a broader readership, is The Times' unique niche in its campaign coverage?  read more »