Online magazine Salon, an early staple of internet discourse, announces
it will shut down
[November 06, 2026] By
TED ANTHONY and JOCELYN NOVECK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Salon, one of the early internet's most influential
websites that featured sharp voices and political and cultural
journalism with a liberal sensibility, announced Thursday it would shut
down after 31 years of publication. “It has been an extraordinary
privilege,” the outlet said in a farewell note.
The announcement, seen as a surprise, cited the fact that “the business
realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly over
the years.” It did not immediately indicate what would become of its
employees, though some reported they had lost their jobs. A spokesperson
for the outlet said 19 full-time employees had been affected, as well as
a handful of private contractors.
“Over three decades, Salon has brought together politics, culture,
criticism and ideas in a way that was distinctly our own,” the unsigned
farewell note said. “Our journalism examined power and politics,
questioned assumptions, surfaced stories that deserved attention and
made room for perspectives that were too often overlooked. Our writers
and editors helped shape conversations about the forces changing our
lives.”
It began shortly after the internet went big
Salon began its life in the mid-1990s, barely three years after the
internet itself went mainstream and a time when the “World Wide Web” was
still written out in that fashion. It launched a decade before the
newspaper and print magazine markets imploded — and a decade, too,
before the rise of social media fragmented the journalism world.
As its name suggested, Salon was initially styled as an online magazine
and meeting place, a site where more provocative opinions and stories
that might not be at home in daily newspapers or even then-dominant
newsweeklies like Time or Newsweek could surface and generate
discussion. It quickly became a place where writers wanted their work to
appear.
“The timing was right — readers were tired of bland, market-tested media
products, and the internet allowed us to launch something original,
something with a strong voice,” founder David Talbot said on the
outlet’s five-year anniversary in 2000.
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The home page of Salon.com is displayed on a computer screen in New
York on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)
 It drew a cadre of high-profile
writers and people who would become famous, including Jake Tapper
and Glenn Greenwald. Two of its editors-in-chief, Talbot and Joan
Walsh, went on to become prominent progressive political voices as
well.
As the internet grew, so did Salon's competition. Slate emerged the
following year, and soon after, online magazines became the order of
the day. Eventually, older print publications like The Atlantic
began putting more content online and the marketplace of online
ideas grew. Salon used Princess Diana's death in 1997 to go beyond
its culture-and-criticism roots and wade into breaking-news
coverage.
Salon'sarchives will remain online for now
Salon told The Associated Press that it had no immediate plans to
take down its online archives, which include three decades of
stories from across the world and across topics and genres.
In its statement, Salon also made a point of thanking its readers.
“You came to Salon for the journalism, the dialogue, the essays, the
criticism, the unexpected discoveries and the sense that there was a
place on the internet where ideas mattered,” it said. “You read,
shared, challenged, subscribed, wrote to us and kept coming back.
Your engagement made Salon a publication and a community, and it
gave our work meaning. We are so grateful for the time you spent
with us.”
—
Noveck reported from New York.
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