David Talbot Quotations

Most magazines have become wallpaper, they're all the same, all the same celebrities. It's really an abysmal time in American journalism right now. But occasionally one story or two will pop out.

A lot of my idealism was frustrated by the end of the '60s because of the way things went with the assassinations and the sense that the political establishment was so fixed in its ways you couldn't change anything.

I came at age in the '60s, and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.

Other than that one year, Salon has been very cautious about the way it spends money. For instance, since last year, we've had virtually no marketing budget. It's just word of mouth. And our circulation continues to grow that way by breaking news stories.

I know that doesn't sound very radical and webby of me to say that but I think the New York Times is important. I also think there's an occasional piece that will pop out.

I think there is a difference between Slate and Salon. I think we both serve important functions on the Internet. As more and more Websites disappear, I'm thankful Slate is still around because it makes things less lonely.

When you're kept by a patron you don't have to duke it out in the media marketplace for dollars and for readers. In some ways that's a blessing because it takes a lot of pressure off you.

The entire economy, of course, is locked in a down cycle right now. Last time we weathered this was during another Bush presidency in '90. We were locked in it for a year and a half and everyone came out of it.

People sort of take it for granted, but the more you see of the media world the more you appreciate a paper like the Times where its family continues to invest in editorial quality and I think it's the truly is the best paper in the world.

The only school that let me in was U.C. Santa Cruz, which is where I went. They didn't have a journalism program, so I took sociology, which is the closest thing to journalism.