Salon.com Will Be D.C.’s Afternoon Paper
Last night’s dinner honoring former USA Today’s Walter Shapiro as the new Salon.com bureau chief brought together a small crowd at the Finnish Embassy, well within birdshot range of the Naval Observatory across Massachusetts Avenue. As Dick Cheney‘s motorcade raced home outside, guests gathered for cocktails in the impressive modern chic main reception area overlooking Normanstone Park.
Newly appointed Finnish ambassador Pekka Lintu gave the introductory remarks and then turned it over to Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh, who is normally based in San Francisco.
While acknowledging that he was the least likely person ever to be heading an online news organization in Washington, Shapiro said that obviously Salon wouldn’t be competing with the New York Times, but the key was to find where he could compete with the resources he had–and that niche was to provide thoughtful original reporting and analysis outside the White House and the halls of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. Salon.com, he promised, would be Washington’s afternoon newspaper–filling the role left by the demise of the Washington Star. In explaining how he hopes to develop Salon.com’s Washington coverage, he cited the site’s blogs, like War Room by Tim Grieve, and its original reporting like Michael Scherer‘s piece on CPAC.
Shapiro, who does stand-up comedy, threw out bon mot after bon mot. Commenting on the dinner’s pregnant subject across the street, he said, “Those of us who have covered the Bushes, know that they’ve had a quail problem since at least 1988.”
More, including guest list and anti-journalism school rant, after the jump.
Later, on the subject of blogging, he explained, “Blogging is like the Clinton marraige, it should be discussed in 30 seconds or 30 hours — nothing in between will satisfy anyone.”
The 65-person crowd included a wide swath of D.C. media, ranging from new New York Times blogger Chris Suellentrop to retired Hill expert Al Eisele to Prospect star Garance Franke-Ruta, as well as a group as diverse as WSJ’s John Harwood, NBC’s Rebecca Samuels, The Week’s Margaret Carlson, Fox’s Major Garrett, the Post’s Mark Leibovich, USA Today’s Jill Lawrence, Time’s Karen Tumulty, Matt Cooper (who got a round of applause from the crowd for his “martyr” role in the Plame leak investigation), and Viveca Novak, CNN’s Jennifer Avellino, and the Atlantic’s James Fallows.
There was much discussion about the current state of print journalism. During his remarks, Shapiro said that he thought the industry was at its lowest ebb since 1931 when the New York World closed.
One noted, only somewhat jokingly, that amid widespread lay-offs last year the only reporters over 50 who managed to find new jobs were Shapiro and former U.S. News political writer/blogger Roger Simon, now at Bloomberg.
Too many laid-off reporters have landed in academia, helping to fuel a dangerous trend. Attendees discussed the dangers of the profileration of journalism education and degrees, saying it was turning people educated in only a trade out into a world where there weren’t jobs in that trade. “At least something like history has an academic rigor to it,” one commenter said.
“It’s worse than the horse and buggy — it’s like teaching someone to be a horse and buggy repairperson,” one attendee added.
“Don’t worry, they’ll all go into P.R.,” someone shot back.
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