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Washington Post is close to buying Slate, reports say

By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter

Michael Kinsley was Slate's founding editor.

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Speculation about Slate's sale has swirled since Microsoft disclosed in July that it was talking to potential buyers.

Microsoft started the magazine as an experiment in online media in 1996. It quickly gained cachet, particularly among media and political junkies, when it hired marquee journalist Michael Kinsley as its founding editor.

Slate now claims to have 3.1 million users and in 2003 won a National Magazine Award for general excellence online.

But Microsoft is paring back its content businesses to focus on writing software, and its New Media venture is about to be absorbed by the Old Media it once threatened to displace.

	Melinda French Gates sits on The Washington Post Co. board.

The Washington Post is close to buying the magazine, according to a report in New York magazine's Oct. 4 issue that's now available online.

A Microsoft source familiar with the situation said yesterday that the content of the magazine report is accurate. The source asked not to be identified.

Washington Post Chairman Donald Graham did not respond to a request for comment.

"We won't make any comments on anything we might or might not be considering," spokeswoman Rima Calderon said.

The Washington Post Co. may take some credit for Slate's early success. It owns Newsweek, which gave Slate — and Seattle — a huge publicity boost in 1996 when it ran a cover photo of Kinsley with the headline, "Swimming to Seattle: Everybody Else Is Moving There. Should You?"

Kinsley left Slate in 2002, and last April he was named editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial page.

	Donald Graham is chairman of The Washington Post Co. board.

Among Slate's biggest advocates at Microsoft is Chairman Bill Gates, who has close ties to the Washington Post Co. Earlier this month his wife, Melinda French Gates, joined the Post's board of directors alongside his friend, Warren Buffett. Gates was also a friend of Donald Graham's late mother, Katharine.

It's unclear what would happen to Slate's Redmond staff under a sale. It has about 30 employees, mostly journalists. A dozen are based in Redmond. About five, including Editor Jacob Weisberg, are based in New York, and eight are in Washington, D.C.

The Washington Post Co. has facilities in the area — it owns the Herald newspaper in Everett.

Slate's biggest readership is tech-savvy, married, educated males earning more than $75,000 a year.

During August, Slate was the 73rd most visited online news and media site with 0.13 percent of the market, according to media ranking company Hitwise.

Despite its high profile, Slate's sale is unlikely to have a significant effect on Microsoft's stock.

"I've never seen it broken out as a line-item sort of thing," said Jonathan Geurkink, a stock analyst at Ragen MacKenzie in Seattle. "They've talked about being more of a software company over the years as opposed to a provider of content, so it kind of fits with that plan."

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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