from an older thread abt salon:
worst part of salon: the articles that say "i wondered and wondered about whether i was a bad parent for reasons x, y, and z and then realized how wrong conventional wisdom is because i am really a great parent, though i am not perfect because part of good writing is laying out your imperfections." aaaaaarrrgh.― Maria (Maria), Sunday, July 3, 2005 2:16 PM (6 years ago)
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 9 March 2012 06:06 (twelve years ago) link
I don't know enough about the Atlantic, but Salon and Slate both suffer from that middle-class "am I ethical enough?" bullshit. They sometimes come off as a parody of what the cliché "Guardian readers" are in the UK. That's why the Slate Culture Gabfest is so goddamn infuriating. There are so many things they treat as "ooh, I know it looks kind of stupid and I can't believe I'm saying it but I really like x".
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 9 March 2012 06:10 (twelve years ago) link
When I was in college I had the vague notion of wanting to be a magazine journalist, and my family referred me to a friend who was a moderately successful magazine journalist, and I remember him being like "you should contact this guy Will Saletan, he's doing this thing called Slate on *the internet*" etc. I had never heard of it at the time, and I was so fucking green and dumb that I just e-mailed Will Saletan and basically said "Hi C____ S_____ said I should e-mail you about an internship can I have one?" and didn't attach a resume or anything.
― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Friday, 9 March 2012 06:17 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/reviews/slidingdoors.jpg
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 9 March 2012 06:23 (twelve years ago) link
atlantic is more thinking smart thoughts abt the world by inhuman people who have been to lots of college and twitter but not the actual world
― lag∞n, Thursday, March 8, 2012 5:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol
atlantic has maybe 3 writers i read, slate has 2, salon has 1, so atlantic.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 9 March 2012 06:28 (twelve years ago) link
I was thinking that you could make a really great site by combining writers from these 3 and you could also make the worst site on the internet
what if there were one stop shop for greenwald, megan mcardle and slate cultural criticism. wouldn't that be your homepage too?
― iatee, Friday, 9 March 2012 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
how about a daily back and forth with joan walsh and katie roiphe?
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
Slate, easily. A bunch of my favourite online writers, incl John Dickerson, Dana Stevens, Jody Rosen, and very enjoyable podcasts. Don't understand the hate for their arts coverage at all.
Used to read Salon pre-subscription experiment but I don't visit it unless someone links to it on Twitter - usually a Greenwald or Pareene piece - or I'm scanning Metacritic for film reviews and I remember I like O'Hehir.
― Suede - the fabric, not the band (DL), Friday, 9 March 2012 17:42 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i like dana stevens a lot, dahlia lithwick too.
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:05 (twelve years ago) link
I really really dislike their television critic. Worst writer ever.
― Mordy, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:17 (twelve years ago) link
troy paterson?? really?? i dig him a lot
― max, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:17 (twelve years ago) link
i have a kneejerk contempt of all tv criticism. idk why.
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:22 (twelve years ago) link
yeah me too I realize it's irrational
― iatee, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:23 (twelve years ago) link
theres a lot of bad tv criticism out there but i think paterson is pretty good
― max, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:23 (twelve years ago) link
TV criticism, hardly worth the effort
Vulture is an NYmag thing, yes?
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 9 March 2012 19:25 (twelve years ago) link
― iatee, Friday, 9 March 2012 17:05 (2 hours ago) Permalink
I actually think this kind of internet media could really benefit from more consolidation -- there are too many sites to check right now and I wind up checking none.
― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Friday, 9 March 2012 19:25 (twelve years ago) link
it seems so pointless. it seems most disconnected from the relationship between program and audience.
xp hurting, get yourself some rss!
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:27 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know how this is possible. i've never read anything by him that i felt was well-written or insightful about the subject matter. and plenty of embarrassing pieces that read like creative writing assignments
― Mordy, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:27 (twelve years ago) link
well the consolidation is happening on a certain level, like there are more aggregation type sites. I feel like the place where an article came from matters less and less.
xp
― iatee, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:29 (twelve years ago) link
does that really annoying mommy blog lady still write for salon? ayelet waldman?
Mrs. Michael Chabon iirc!
― Cuba Pudding, Jr. (jaymc), Friday, 9 March 2012 19:29 (twelve years ago) link
When David Edelstein wrote for Slate in the early '00s, he was probably my favorite film critic. Then he decamped for New York in the days when its website wasn't as culturally prevalent as it is now, and I stopped reading him. Dana Stevens is generally pretty likeable, though.
― Cuba Pudding, Jr. (jaymc), Friday, 9 March 2012 19:33 (twelve years ago) link
voted for Slate, mostly for the podcasts which are usually pretty good
Also enjoy the Slate "Explainer" stuff.
― silverfish, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:34 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i dont know i think TP is a good writer. dunno about the creative writing pieces.
dont know goole means about audience
― max, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:36 (twelve years ago) link
― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Friday, March 9, 2012 2:25 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
its called twitter dawg
― lag∞n, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:37 (twelve years ago) link
― iatee, Friday, March 9, 2012 12:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
to poop on
atlantic has occasional actual longform reporting. i'll probably read more nonsense on salon though, which has some very good writers but also a fair amounts of huffpo-itis. haven't thought about slate in years except when i see the occasional link to some music thing there or remember fondly this article: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/vice/2001/06/monkeyfishing.html
― s.clover, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
criticism of music and movies seems to be inserted more directly into the 'conversation' about those things, because (pre d/l) there is a purchase-decision angle to weigh in on. the 'buyer's guide' aspect of criticism is subject to a lot of debate, sure, but it is part of the deal. there are also specific subculture/genre relationships and narratives to track between producers, products, and audiences. i'm kind of struggling here but the aspect of leaving your home for both music and movies gives each a kind of public life that renders critical work about it more potent? idk
tv is something that people just have in their house turn on. what is there even to criticize? pointless is maybe the wrong word, how about... ineffectual?
i guess in a dvr era tv is a bit more similar to downloaded music and streamed movies, and tv series post-hbo have become more cinematic -- so maybe we are entering into an era when writing about tv will start to have a similar function and relationship as other criticisms
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
my problem is there is really so little of that cinematic tv that's 'worth criticizing' that it just ends up w/ people talking about the wire again and again
― iatee, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:51 (twelve years ago) link
like even in the neu-era of tv there really are not that many 'ps this is clearly meant to be a work of art' shows
― iatee, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of criticism about tv -- say in the NYer though in a lot of places online too -- comes a few seasons in. so its less buyers guide (though theres a "recommendation" aspect to it) than it is like. i dont know. "actual criticism" or something. see for example emily nussbaums essay about the good wife, now in the middle of its 3rd season, in last weeks NYer
― max, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
i thought nussbaum's recent piece about good children's television was excellent
― Mordy, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:57 (twelve years ago) link
i haven't read the nyer in a long time, i probably have bad memories of the franklin regime
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:58 (twelve years ago) link
hey should i start a thread about that AWAKE show? i think it's kinda good
― goole, Friday, 9 March 2012 19:59 (twelve years ago) link
i also like troy patterson but i feel like he's been "off" for a while idk. i haven't been able to read dana stevens for years and i used to be a fan back in her blog days so i mean it's probably me. dahlia lithwick is easily the best and most consistent writer at slate.
x-post i only like tv criticism that realizes its own pointlessness from the start and hopefully 1) lols ensue 2) you learn something about tv shows you would never want to know. nb i hate tv.
― Your Ample Girth Does Intimidate (Matt P), Friday, 9 March 2012 20:00 (twelve years ago) link
an occasional essay about an entire genre of television is fine. A piece on a single show is almost always bad, unless it's one of a handful of really great shows, in which case it's already been written about enough. The worst are those new-season-of-tv roundups where you watch the critic contort himself to find the better and worse among a bunch of completely shitty shows.
― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Friday, 9 March 2012 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
lots of times you get these tv-diaries episode by episode recap things where it really ends up being sort of like a group discussion with a moderator, so the author is just talking about what they did or didn't enjoy in the episode and in the comments everyone else chimes in and you get theories about if sawyer was the horse or who is going to sleep with who or whatever. so basically like a more formal version of our rolling ilx threads. and folks read and participate for the same reason -- because its more fun to consume this or that media if you have people to talk about it and argue about it with.
arguably this is not what people consider "criticism." also, arguably, this is more like what criticism used to be in a historical sense until it took a weird detour roughly coinciding with the time of modernism.
― s.clover, Friday, 9 March 2012 20:06 (twelve years ago) link
i have a hard time believing that tv writing is bad because of tv
― max, Friday, 9 March 2012 20:07 (twelve years ago) link
OHHHHH wait are you guys all talking about "recaps"? thats not really "tv criticism" as sterling points out
There's a difference between recaps and reviews, even on a weekly, episode-by-episode basis.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 9 March 2012 20:14 (twelve years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Wednesday, 14 March 2012 00:01 (twelve years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Thursday, 15 March 2012 00:01 (twelve years ago) link
foto finish
― iatee, Thursday, 15 March 2012 02:20 (twelve years ago) link
salon is better w/ books than slate
― Mordy, Thursday, 15 March 2012 02:21 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.salon.com/ew
― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 April 2012 03:43 (twelve years ago) link
freezes my browser for like 3 minutes every time i go there + looks ugly = mega-dud
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 24 April 2012 06:07 (twelve years ago) link
and it was so sensible-looking before, shame
― j., Tuesday, 24 April 2012 06:08 (twelve years ago) link
so gross
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 24 April 2012 07:05 (twelve years ago) link
The "S" looks deformed
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Tuesday, 24 April 2012 07:18 (twelve years ago) link
hahaha what??
it looks for all the world like the design team was given a brief with one phrase on a piece of paper:
"vogue for men"
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 April 2012 09:04 (twelve years ago) link
from the pages of slate comments:
MollyI have been a s!ut many many times. I am not proud of it. I think I understand this left-leaning website continuing to write articles about it. They seem to think it will help them get a liberal elected. I do not think it will. Nothing they say here will matter in the election just as what I just said will not matter. Still, it is fun having a place to tell the world stuff. Thank you, slate for letting me say that.55 Minutes Ago from slate.com · Reply
― Mordy, Saturday, 28 April 2012 03:03 (twelve years ago) link