WIPED AGAIN:

Washington Post Co. Buying Web Magazine Slate (Howard Kurtz, December 21, 2004, Washington Post)

The Washington Post Co. said today it is buying Slate in an effort to boost the newspaper company's online traffic but does not plan any editorial changes at the eight-year-old Web magazine.

In announcing a deal to buy Slate from Microsoft Corp. for an undisclosed sum, said to be in the millions of dollars, Post executives said they would keep Jacob Weisberg as editor and most of the 30-person staff. Cliff Sloan, general counsel of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, will also become publisher of the money-losing magazine when the deal takes effect next month.

This would be the same Post that refuses to allow Free Republic to excerpt its stories and whose Newsweek site is one of the worst on the web?

I actually stumbled across what looks like a feasible model for such folks to make money off their content--both Salon and The Economist now offer non-subscribers a daypass if you sit through a brief on-line ad. That seems a small enough thing to ask in exchange for what they provide.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2004 2:37 PM