Right. But The Atlantic, for instance, is mostly opinion and commentary --- in fact, on any given day, that's all you'll see them running on the front page --- but they've funded some pretty intense investigative reporting (Caitlin Dickerson's pieces, in particular the most recent Darien Gap thing, great illustrations of that). Salon never did, so far as I know.

Yeah, I agree. I don't think they've ever had any actual "news" staff.

They had paid cultural news staff, and actually they were the very best those times. Charles Taylor, Andrew O'Hehir, Stephanie Zacharek for film eg. Similar for music and literature.

>Salon never did, so far as I know.

And for a reason. It's expensive. Only the tiny handful of winners of the digital transition (including The Atlantic) can now afford it.

The Atlantic and the NYT are now quite flush. IMO people should be subscribing to local newspapers instead, to fund local reporting, which is in a dire state.