Salon
U.S. left
Background
Salon launched on November 20, 1995, founded by David Talbot — a former editor at Mother Jones and the San Francisco Examiner — along with colleagues Gary Kamiya, Andrew Ross, and Mignon Khargie, with seed funding from Apple executive Richard Gingras and Adobe co-founder John Warnock. Venture capitalist William Hambrecht later invested a reported $5.5 million. Time named it website of the year in 1996, and it built a reputation for long-form progressive commentary and investigative journalism during the Clinton years. The dot-com bust devastated its ad revenue; by 2002 it was delisted from NASDAQ and warned it might not survive as a going concern. Salon accumulated more than $124 million in deficits by 2015 and cycled through multiple rounds of cost-cutting and ownership changes. In November 2023, Find.co — a holding company run by French entrepreneurs Mendel Benoit and Jonathan Amsellem — acquired Salon for an undisclosed sum, promising to keep the editorial staff intact. Media analysts consistently rate Salon as left-leaning, with story selection and headline framing that strongly favors progressive viewpoints and is sharply critical of conservative politicians and policies.
Sources
- Find.co Acquires Salon.com (PR Newswire)
- Online news pioneer 'Salon' is sold for an undisclosed sum (Fast Company)
- Salon – Bias and Credibility (Media Bias/Fact Check)
- Salon – Bias and Reliability (Biasly)
- Salon.com (Wikipedia)
- Salon, Slate, and the Tricky Business of Publishing Online (History of the Web)
- David Talbot on how journalism has changed (Salon.com)
- Salon – Influence Watch
Profile compiled 2026-08-06; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.