Slate (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

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  Slate magazine launched on the 24th of June, 1996 with an unusual promise. Michael Kinsley, the magazine's founder, wrote that one of the site's goals was proving that the economics of cyberspace could make quality journalism pay for itself. That was a radical bet at the time. The internet was still a novelty, and most serious journalism lived in print. Kinsley was wagering that something different was possible online. The questions that followed from that bet are the ones Slate has been answering ever since: Can digital journalism sustain itself? Can a publication be smart and provocative without becoming unreliable? And what happens when a magazine becomes so associated with one rhetorical style that the style starts to overshadow the work?

• 2. A Pioneer Under Microsoft

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  Kinsley founded Slate with Microsoft's backing, and the outlet drew heavy traffic through its ties to the MSN network. That relationship gave the fledgling publication a significant audience at a moment when most people were still learning how to navigate the web. Slate was an early pioneer of digital journalism in a concrete way: it helped popularize the use of hyperlinks and opened up communication channels between writers and readers that print could not offer. In 1998, the magazine tried something bold. It introduced a subscription paywall, eventually attracting up to 20,000 subscribers. The experiment did not hold; Slate later abandoned the paywall and moved toward an advertising-supported model. By 2003 the outlet had achieved its first profitable quarter. A year later it broke even, reporting six million dollars in revenue from an audience of six million monthly readers. Kinsley served as editor-in-chief from 1996 until 2002, when Jacob Weisberg took over.

• 3. The Washington Post Years

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  The Washington Post Company bought Slate in 2004, with a purchase agreement that kept the MSN site redirecting to Slate. Under that ownership the publication kept expanding its footprint. In 2007 it launched Slate V, a dedicated online video magazine. A year later, the parent company created The Slate Group to manage Slate alongside other online publications. That same year, two new outlets were born under Slate's roof: The Root, focused on African American news, and The Big Money, covering business. The publication continued to grow its editorial ambitions even as it navigated the financial pressures that were reshaping the media industry. By 2011 it had around 40 full-time editorial staff, though that year also brought layoffs that included co-founder Jack Shafer and columnist Timothy Noah. In 2013, after Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post, Slate's parent company was renamed Graham Holdings. Slate stayed with Graham Holdings rather than moving to Bezos's ownership.

• 4. The Slate Pitch Phenomenon

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  Since 2006, Slate became known for a specific kind of contrarian argument: the kind that stakes out a position that sounds wrong at first but is presented as airtight logic. The Columbia Journalism Review gave this habit a name, defining a "Slate pitch" as an idea that sounds counterintuitive but is proposed as if it were the tightest logic ever. By 2009 the concept had spread far enough that the #slatepitches hashtag emerged on Twitter. In 2014, then editor-in-chief Julia Turner acknowledged that this reputation had become part of Slate's "distinctive" brand, though she argued the hashtag distorted what the site actually did. By 2019, editors including David Plotz said the format had become harder to sustain given the political polarization of the Trump era. That same year, a New York Times report cited anonymous Slate staffers who felt the publication's contrarian reputation had faded. Former Slate writer Matthew Yglesias agreed with that assessment, suggesting the broader journalism industry had become more homogeneous. Turner herself left Slate in 2019 to join the Los Angeles Times.

• 5. Podcasting as a Foundation

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  Slate's first podcast, Political Gabfest, launched in 2005 and grew directly out of the magazine's editorial conference calls. According to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Slate was involved in podcasting almost from the very beginning of the medium. The early episodes ran about 15 minutes; by 2012 most Slate podcasts had stretched to around 45 minutes. By June 2012, the lineup had grown to 19 shows, with Political Gabfest and Culture Gabfest drawing the largest audiences. In 2012 it was reported that Slate's podcasts commanded the highest advertising sell-through rates of any content the outlet produced, driven by strong listener engagement. The catalog shrank to 14 podcasts by February 2015, with those shows collectively pulling six million downloads a month. By 2018 the lineup had grown again to 25 podcasts. Slow Burn, the series examining political scandals of the past, eventually won a National Magazine Award for podcasting.

• 6. Membership, Awards, and Controversy

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  Slate won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2003, and again in 2011. Between 2009 and 2014 the publication received 14 NMA nominations and won twice. A 2016 NMA for podcasting followed, with the Slow Burn podcast among the recognized works. On the reader side, 2014 brought two milestones: an estimated 30 million monthly visitors, and the launch of "Slate Plus", a membership tier offering ad-free podcasts and bonus materials. Within a year, the program had drawn 9,000 subscribers generating roughly half a million dollars in annual revenue. By September 2014 the outlet had returned to profitability. In June 2015 it moved all content behind a metered paywall for international readers, citing advertisers' preference for domestic audiences. Controversy arrived in 2001 when Slate published a piece by Jay Forman about fishermen in the Florida Keys supposedly catching rhesus monkeys. After investigations by other publications, Forman admitted to his editor, Jack Shafer, that the story had been fabricated. In 2021, podcast host Mike Pesca was suspended and ultimately parted ways with Slate following a workplace discussion about the use of a racial slur. On the 16th of September, 2025, Slate filed a lawsuit against Google over alleged antitrust violations.