Salon announced it will cease publication as of Thursday, November 5, exactly 31 years after its launch.
While Salon was never considered “queer media,” it featured memorable stories about queer culture at a time when LGBTQ+ writers, editors, guest contributors, and creators had limited room to express themselves openly.
Salon says goodbye.
In its official announcement, titled “Goodbye from Salon,” the pioneering online publication argued that the economics of independent digital journalism have become unsustainable.
“After careful consideration, we have reached the difficult decision that our publishing model is no longer sustainable. We know this news will be deeply disappointing to many of you, and we share that sadness,” the statement reads.
A digital media pioneer from San Francisco.
Founded in November 1995 in San Francisco, Salon was “one of [the] first public tests” to prove whether “digital electronic media was beginning to emerge,” as The New York Times noted back in 1995.
“There was a dispirited feeling at The Examiner,” former editor-in-chief David Talbot told The New York Times about founding Salon. “Now the fun and energy is back. We have an opportunity to create a new journalism.”
Salon first launched under the domain salon1999.com. And, as expected, its digital-first architecture drew all kinds of reactions from media experts and traditional news organizations.
Paul Saffo, a publishing consultant, shared his skepticism with the Times:
“All the major publications have tried to do electronic stuff. They got it right intellectually but in their hearts they love fiber too much. This stuff is going to siphon off the people who are most important to the future of newspapers.”
The Times story also included a positive outlook from consultant David Cole:
“The barrier to entry has always been, ‘Do you have $10 million for a printing press?’ Now the question is, ‘Do you have $75 a month for an I.S.D.N. telephone line.’“
Salon’s coverage of queer culture.
Salon became notable for platforming stories and op-eds about LGBTQ+ people, culture, and projects without treating the community as a sidebar. Within that coverage, the publication also made room for diverging views on LGBTQ+ matters — from forward-thinking pieces to backward-paddling stories.
At a time when social media didn’t exist and queer-related topics weren’t taken seriously by traditional news outlets, even those published disagreements (on a non-queer-specific platform!) felt like some form of progress.
See a list of standout stories from Salon tackling LGBTQ+ topics below.
June 1996: An interview by Christopher Hawthorne with Tony Kushner — in which they discussed the AIDS epidemic and how Angels in America impacted American theater — was published.
April 1997: Laura Miller called out the “Media Circus” surrounding Ellen DeGeneres’s coming out and relationship with actress Anne Heche.
October 1998: Seven days after Matthew Shepard was murdered, Richard Rodriguez defiantly asked straight people: “What does it tell us about heterosexual insecurity that a gay wink in a bar would unleash such murderous rage?”
November 1998: Andrew Sullivan discussed his then-divisive argument for marriage equality, which was criticized for “advocating conventionality as a healthy alternative to radicalism and promiscuity.”
July 2002: Mark Simpson broke down the concept of “metrosexuality” and questioned the label of “gay icon” in response to David Beckham appearing as a cover star for Attitude magazine.
January 2005: Abraham Lincoln’s alleged homosexuality (still a controversial topic) was explained by Andrew O’Hehir.
February 2012: Grindr hadn’t even existed for three full years when Thomas Rogers wrote a personal essay, “My Grindr love affair,” for Salon.
February 2014: Katie McDonough spoke with Laverne Cox about the then-recent interview in which the actress was asked by Katie Couric about genitals.
June 2016: One day after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Nico Lang urged mainstream media to “call the Orlando massacre a hate crime” and an “attack on the LGBT community” — arguing that “we can’t repeat mistakes of the past” by erasing the queer identities of the victims.
February 2022: Rona Cran outlined the LGBTQ+ history and the concept of “camp,” referencing moments from Little Richard, Elton John, RuPaul, Lady Gaga, and Lil Nas X over the years.
July 2024: Independence Day was celebrated with a story by Nardos Haile about how “Chappell Roan’s fierce drag persona spells liberation for the queer community.”
The broader perspective.
Despite undergoing major changes in recent years, Salon was still a publication that hired queer writers and editors, helped legitimize queer stories in the broader media ecosystem, and played a key role in digital journalism as we know it today.
The end of Salon feels like another major loss to the media landscape overall, particularly among outlets that dare to take chances, bet on new voices, explore different perspectives, and aren’t owned by large media conglomerates.
Thirty-one years is a run. Salon covered queer culture as culture instead of an annual issue package, and the difference mattered. The economics being unsustainable for the outlet that helped prove the model is a bleak little irony.