Sometimes the news offers more questions than it answers. A curious reader might wonder about the cultural ramifications of current events beyond the this-is-what-happened-yesterday of newspapers.
Slate, a daily Web-only magazine, gives this approach to issues immediately. For example, when Al Gore’s son was arrested earlier this year for drug possession after being clocked at 100 mph in his Toyota Prius, Slate the next day asked the real question I’d been wondering: can a tiny Prius even go 100 mph? (It can, Slate’s experts proved, but barely).
This was a part of the Explainer column, which consults experts to answer questions that run tangent to the news. In another example, after the Larry Craig scandal, Explainer found out exactly what signals are used and what each implies for bathroom sex.
Slate routinely digs into things that way. Slate’s writers are funny and insightful, but above all, they’re damn smart. And when they don’t know the answers, they go and find the experts. It’s not where you go to immediately find out what’s happening in the world, but it is where you go to find out what geeky, stop-at-nothing-to-satisfy-a-curious-whim minds think about current events.
Pretty much everything in Slate is a well-researched opinion piece, and the writers argue points across the board. Liberal topics might outnumber the rest, but media critic Jack Shafer often argues a libertarian stance and Christopher Hitchens takes a scholarly neo-con approach to Islamic terrorism. And they all fit together well. Slate’s only mandate for its writers seems that they just be curious and willing to question general assumptions.
Despite existing solely in cyberspace, Slate doesn’t make much use of multimedia. It launched Slate V, a “video magazine,” last year, but most of its content is either pulled from other sources or is simply readings from the main magazine with visuals. Slate’s audience, I’d imagine, is well read. It isn’t turned off by words on a page, and Slate shouldn’t worry about catering to an audience hesitant to read.
On Monday, November 12, Slate featured the assortment of stories that are present every day at Slate: an obituary for Norman Mailer (which is more like an essay); an analysis of a study showing that women are treated worse than men at coffee shops; an article examining the role of gender in the Iowa primary; and one examining media coverage of the television writer’s strike. Slate’s writers aren’t just writing about the primary or about the strike. Instead, they are writing about specific aspects of them that are interesting, such as why women in Iowa love or hate Hillary and why the media loves striking workers (journalists are too close to Hollywood as either reporters of wannabe screenwriters, Shafer argues). This is what Slate does. They ask all of the second-day questions and answer them with argument and research.
The obituary of Mailer is by Christopher Hitchens, and it’s noticeably fonder than his memoriam for Mother Teresa that drew a lot of fire. He opens with a quote from Mailer: “culture is worth a little risk.” And this quote, I’d argue, defines the Slate aesthetic: it’s stepping out to take a more microscopic look to give American culture the analysis it doesn’t often get, and it’s hoping people want to read it. As long as Slate continues to be as savvy and curious as it is now, I suspect people will.
–Dave Canfield
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