A New 'Slate': Washington Post Co. Buys Microsoft's Webzine

By: E&P Staff The Washington Post Co. announced a deal today to buy Slate, the online magazine, from Microsoft Corp. for an undisclosed sum, Howard Kurtz reported on washingtonpost.com.

Kurtz reported that the Post Co. is believed to be paying in the millions of dollars for the pioneering Web venture, launched in 1996 by Michael Kinsley. The Post plans to retain Slate editor Jacob Weisberg and most of its 30-person staff. Cliff Sloan, general counsel of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, will become Slate's publisher.

"Our goal is not to in any way change Slate," Ann McDaniel, a Post Co. vice president and former top Newsweek editor, told Kurtz. "We think it's important that it keep its personality. Over time, we hope to find a business model that will make money. You're not suddenly going to see a different kind of Slate."

Slate drew 4.8 million unique visitors last month, according to ComScore Media Metrix, compared to washingtonpost.com's 4.5 million, Kurtz reported. Much of Slate's traffic is driven from elsewhere in the Microsoft Network, whose home page will still carry Slate headlines under the terms of this deal. Slate and washingtonpost.com will now cross-promote each other's stories.

"Microsoft has been a great place for us over the last 8-1/2 years," Weisberg told Kurtz. "It was a tough place to develop our business because it wasn't a media company and doesn't want to be a media company. They're really big and we're really small. The joke was always that we're almost a rounding error, but a rounding error would probably exaggerated our status."

Weisberg also said: "[Post Co. CEO] Don Graham and everyone else else we've dealt with at the Post Co. made very clear they wanted to buy Slate because they like the magazine the way it is. I don't think readers are going to notice much difference."