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Thank Heavens for Slate

April 13, 2007 at 08:14 | Print This Post Print This Post

Not as a roofing material, or even for your floors - no, Slate for your brain. After a recent spate of particularly smart, funny and enjoyable reading it’s occurred to me that over a matter of years Slate has become my single favourite source of media - it’s now at the top of my indispensable list.


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7 Responses to “Thank Heavens for Slate”


  1. April 13th, 2007 at 11:23

    Honestly, I couldn’t agree more. Slate is my favorite for witty writing. If you like Slate, you’d probably like Rick’s stylings at http://www.hypocritical.com/blog/

    -Cheyne


  2. Rob Hyndman (319 comments.)
    April 13th, 2007 at 15:16

    Thanks for the tip - I’ll have a look.


  3. John (2 comments.)
    April 14th, 2007 at 18:45

    Slate is excellent. I just wish we had something of this calibre that featured the Canadian perspective.


  4. Rob Hyndman (319 comments.)
    April 14th, 2007 at 18:57

    I think that would be grat, John. But what I’ve always wondered was whether we had the population in Canada to support it. I doubt that a subscription model is workable, so it would have to be ad and sponsorship revenue, and that comes down to traffic. I think the big Q is whether it could draw non-Canadians, there being just too few of us north of the border to produce the pageviews to make it a viable business, I suspect. And I’m starting to wonder whether there are Canadian stories that can produce the level of interest that Slate produces. There’s just so much going on in the States …


  5. John (8 comments.)
    April 15th, 2007 at 02:34

    Indeed. We definitely lack colourful figures such as Imus et al. I suppose the likes of Ralph Kline, and Kim Campbell disrobed (literally) would only be amusing to a choice few.

    One thing I enjoy about the tech a-list is the fact that, for the most part the information is entirely relevant, borders notwithstanding. Unfortunately politics does not share this diversity, beyond U.S. foreign policies which may or may not affect us here.

    I certainly agree that pageviews, and cost effectiveness would be a chanllenge.


  6. Rob Hyndman (319 comments.)
    April 15th, 2007 at 08:31

    What we need is a few more John Crosbie’s. Thought I guess Sheila Copps would disagree.

    I’m not sure how to read it, but we seem to have less appetite here for the bump and grind of daily politics. So, no real magazine culture, and not a lot of newspapers, and not a lot of talk radio. Some of all of the above, but cripes, there are something like 20 newspapers (OK, I have no idea exactly how many, but I know it’s a lot) in London and Paris. And as you note, we’re not that interesting to folks beyond our borders.