Origin Story (Salon)

"Our memory is as unique as our DNA" -- David Weir

______

Over the past weekend, my post-pandemic socializing continued with a lunch at the Bernal home of old friends David Talbot and Camille Peri. Besides being personal friends, both are talented authors and journalists; David is best-known as the founder of Salon, which from a journalistic perspective was one of the most important startups ever to emerge from San Francisco.

That's a big statement but I will explain.

Talbot had been a successful editor at Mother Jones and the San Francisco Examiner, where he ran the popular Sunday magazine, but he had a bigger dream -- to start his own publication.

I'd talked with him about this for some years until finally in 1995 he got his chance. Richard Gingras, then an executive at Apple, staked him with a small pot of money and with that, David gave notice at the Examiner in order to live out his dream.

There wasn't very much funding at all but the charismatic and persuasive Talbot  convinced three colleagues -- editors Gary Kamiya and Andrew Ross and designer Mignon Khargie -- to give up their steady jobs and join him in his quest.

The group was rounded out by publisher David Zweig, bringing the staff to five and they settled pro-bono into an architect's office down on the waterfront.

At Talbot's invitation, I joined them too, not on the creative side but on the business side. That made sense because I was just coming off a stint as EVP of KQED, the large public broadcasting company in Northern California, and I knew my way around the Bay Area fundraising world.

While the journalists developed an editorial plan, I helped Zweig establish a business plan, which proved to be a daunting task. First and foremost, the team needed money, so I set about meeting with potential investors in San Francisco bars with a Mac laptop furnished by Gingras. It was loaded with a prototype of the magazine.

What made all of this complicated is that Salon would be on the Web, at that time a nascent, unstable platform that as yet was devoid of any real journalism. 

While I was convincing a few individual investors to kick in $25,000 apiece, I also told an old friend and former partner, New York Times tech reporter John Markoff, about what Talbot & crew were up to.

Meanwhile, Gingras, Zweig and Talbot were able to identify two potential major investors -- investment banker Bill Hambrecht and Adobe co-founder John Warnock. I participated in the meetings where they both agreed to get involved, which was more because they shared the magazine's progressive political vision than any hope they would recoup their multi-million dollar investments. 

When Markoff's article appeared, and the magazine launched, it proved to be an instant sensation, and over the years through many ups and downs it has persisted, though it has never to my knowledge actually turned much if any profit.

But profits aside, the reason Salon mattered is it was the first site featuring high quality original content, proving that traditional journalism could compete with the free-for-all that characterized the early Web. (Microsoft launched a similar site called Slate the following year.)

After Salon launched, I left to join HotWired and return to my true love -- journalism. But then I rejoined Salon a few years later as Investigative Editor/Managing Editor and Washington bureau chief during its heyday of the Clinton impeachment drama.

These memories and many others flooded back while I was visiting David and Camille. I also saw their son Joe Talbot, who's carrying on his family's Hollywood pedigree (grandfather Lyle Talbot, was an actor in "Ozzie & Harriet," and uncle Steve Talbot, a great documentary producer, was a child actor in "Leave It To Beaver") as the award-winning director of "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" in 2019.

Over the 25 years since Salon launched, several people have mistakenly referred to me as one of the founders of Salon. I was more like what in basketball is known as the Sixth Man during that launch period in the fall of 1995. 

A whole slew of other talented people would soon join the team. But last year as I was cleaning out my apartment I discovered a relic from the earliest days of Salon. It was what must have been one of its first phone directories, a plain piece of paper with the staff's phone extensions in the architect's office down by the Bay.

On it were six names -- one Gary, one Andrew, one Mignon and three Davids -- Talbot, Zweig and Weir. 

Oh, and there was also a printer called Gingras, but that is another story...

[NOTE: As with all such memories, these are simply *mine* and others may recall the events portrayed differently. According to my operating philosophy, this is natural. Our memory is as unique as our DNA.]

***

THE HEADLINES:

* Mask mandates make a return — along with controversy -- The growing calls to reinstate mask mandates have renewed their status as a cultural and health flashpoint a year and a half after the virus landed in the United States. (WP)

* Indiana University Can Require Students to Get Coronavirus Vaccines -- A federal judge upheld the school’s mandate. But an appeal is on the way, and the mandates remain divisive across the country.  (NYT)

* Joe Biden continued the long presidential tradition of taking credit for a good economy regardless of the cause — which, in Biden’s case, was that it had nowhere to go but up after its pandemic-triggered collapse. [HuffPost]

* Delta variant fears send Dow tumbling in worst one-day decline of 2021 (WP)

* Resurgent pandemic worries knocked stocks lower from Wall Street to Tokyo, fueled by fears that faster-spreading variants of the virus may upend the economy’s strong recovery. Airlines and stocks of other companies that would get hurt the most by potential COVID-19 restrictions took some of the heaviest losses, similar to the early days of the pandemic in February and March 2020. [AP]

* Teens around the world are lonelier than a decade ago. A new study points once more to smartphones. (WP)

* Trauma is Probably the Reason You're So Tired -- You might expect, after a year of living with restrictions and extreme uncertainty, that at this point in the coronavirus pandemic ― with vaccines available in the U.S. and cities and businesses reopening ― people would be full of energy and enthusiasm, ready to get out and do things. But instead, many people are finding themselves particularly exhausted and fatigued. Simple activities and socializations are followed by a real need to rest and recoup. Reinstatements of mask mandates following an uptick in COVID-19 cases are causing a resurgence of anxiety. (HuffPost)

* U.S. warns against travel to Britain as coronavirus cases surge, restrictions lift (WP)

* Smoke from U.S. West wildfires leaves Easterners gasping (Reuters)

* How Bad Is the Bootleg Fire? It’s Generating Its Own Weather. -- Unpredictable winds, fire clouds that spawn lightning, and flames that leap over firebreaks are confounding efforts to fight the blaze, which is sweeping through southern Oregon. (NYT)

* Wildfire Smoke May Add To COVID-19 Risk: Study-- Scientists at the Desert Research Institute found that coronavirus infection rates increased disproportionately during wildfire season in 2020. (HuffPost)

* Climate change pushes Biden to look at new rules for workplace safety (WP)

* We cannot wait for pandemic to end to tackle climate change, says U.S. envoy Kerry (Reuters) 

* India’s pandemic death toll could be in the millions (AP)

* Lost Lives, Lost Culture: The Forgotten History of Indigenous Boarding Schools -- Thousands of Native American children attended U.S. boarding schools designed to “civilize the savage.” Many died. Many who lived are reclaiming their identity. (NYT)

* Bipartisan infrastructure deal in precarious state as endgame nears (WP)

* U.S. to Send Afghan Visa Applicants to Virginia Military Base -- The Biden administration said it would evacuate almost 2,500 Afghans who helped the U.S. government during the 20-year war and who now face reprisals from the Taliban to an Army base in Virginia, pending approval of their visas. (AP)

* iPhones no match for NSO spyware, despite Apple’s security claims (WP)

* Trump ally Barrack arrested on foreign lobbying charges -U.S. Justice Department (Reuters)

* Capitol Rioter Sentenced to 8 Months for Trying to Stop Vote Certification -- Paul A. Hodgkins was the first person charged with a felony in the attack to be sentenced. His penalty could be a guidepost for scores of similar defendants. (NYT)

* Pentagon watchdog to review 'nuclear football' safety procedures after January 6 incident (CNN)

* Many of our lives became static during the past year. These people chose new directions. (WP)

* The Olympics Are Turning Into a $20 Billion Bust for Japan (WSJ)

* Dolly Parton Tried. But Tennessee Is Squandering a Miracle. (NYT)

* Who's Opposing Gov. Gavin Newsom in Recall Effort? Of the 41 candidates, 21 are listed as Republicans. Many are listed as entertainers or businesspeople. (California Today) Read more about who is in the race. (AP)

* A proposed tuition hike from the University of California, which would allow campuses to raise tuition for each incoming class every year, indefinitely. The university has already received $1.3 billion in aid this year. (CalMatters)

* Basketball News: Led by 50 points from superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and boosted by a full house and 65,000 fans outside their arena, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns for their first NBA championship in 50 years.  (YouTube TV)

* Baseball News: Oakland and A's return to bargaining table over stadium, but no progress before key vote. (SF Chronicle) 

* The Pitchers Whose Spin Rates Fell Most After a Crackdown on Sticky Substances  -- Strikeouts have decreased and on-base percentage has risen — midseason changes without parallel in decades of baseball in the majors. (NYT)

* Top Baby Names in 2020 -- Olivia, Emma and Ava for girls; Liam, Noah and Oliver for boys. (Social Security administration)

* Across Africa, literary journals managed by young writers and artists are emerging with the aim of publishing both new and established voices, collaborating across geographies and using the internet and social media to reach their audiences. (NYT Book Review)

* Billionaire Bezos Has Successful Suborbital Jaunt to Space (Reuters)

* Jeff Bezos awarded $100 million each in "courage and civility awards" to CNN's Van Jones and chef José Andrés. (NPR)

* FBI Warns Oregon Fire Had Been Plotting Violent Takeover Of State For Years (The Onion)

***

'When It Started"

Song by The Stokes

Written by Julian Casablancas

Won't decide, but he won't debate
Said, "Thanks my friend, " but he was too late
Oh why, oh why
I don't know

So you think things move pretty fast down here
Well just wait my dear 'til you look up there
Oh maybe someday you'll know

Had his second kid, was an early night
Got to be well dressed 'cause he hates to fly
Oh loves his job, takes it home

Anything they wanted
They could have it, have it
Didn't even notice
I don't mind it, mind it

Won't decide, but he won't debate
Said, "Thanks my friend, thought that we was dead"
Oh why, oh why
I don't know

Think things move pretty fast down here
But just wait my dear 'til we get up there
Oh maybe someday they'll know

Come on tell me does she warm the room
When he comes
Or does he just know how to leave
When it gets cold

Well I don't care, I don't care
Cause it's free