SALON AND INSIDE VERSUS ANDREWSULLIVAN.COM

Isn’t it a little odd that the two news sources hard on the tail of my first $7500 sponsorship are Inside.com and Salon.com, two big liberal loss-making online magazines? I like both sites, link to them, praise and criticize them, and consider many people at both places friends. And there is probably a legitimate story there, if not exactly an earth-shattering one. But isn’t it a little odd that these two sites should be the first to gang up on this one, and help deprive it of its only corporate sponsorship yet? (For background, check out the next but one item.) It’s especially striking that these big-ass websites argue that the reason my lone advertizer represents a conflict of interest and their sponsors and advertizers don’t, is that I’m a small website. Since the entire editorial staff is me; and the entire technical and business staff amounts to my friend Robert Cameron and his staff at Fantascope, Salon and Inside argue I cannot insulate myself from corporate influence the way they can. But that means that a one-man site like this one can never get ads or sponsors without a conflict of interest, doesn’t it? Which means only big sites will survive … like Salon and Inside. Hmmmm. Mighty convenient argument, huh? I guess it sucks to watch a site like mine actually make money while Inside and Salon get sold or delisted. Notice also the journalistic tactics. Both reporters went to my regular editors first at the New York Times and the New Republic to get statements and then contacted me last. This technique is designed to corner people; indeed to pressure them into caving. I feel bad I did. But sometimes, you’ve got to pick your battles. They won this one. We’ll win the war.