Salon was founded in 1995 as one of the earliest digital-only news magazines, positioning itself as a progressive alternative to legacy print media. It gained prominence during the early 2000s with its acerbic tone, cultural commentary, and fierce opposition to the Bush administration. Over time, Salon cemented its place as a mouthpiece for hardline progressivism, particularly in cultural and moral issues.
Salon Media Group Inc. originally launched the site, with its early editorial staff composed of former San Francisco Chronicle and Rolling Stone journalists. The outlet went public in 1999, suffered major financial setbacks in the years following, and eventually fell under the control of several investors. By 2019, the company was acquired by Salon.com LLC, a private company backed by multiple left-leaning investors.
Its funding over the years has included a mix of donations, ad revenue, and venture capital, though Salon has struggled financially on multiple occasions—leading to staff cuts and a stripped-down newsroom. It has increasingly relied on syndicated content, opinion journalism, and cultural hot takes that generate clicks through controversy.
Salon’s worldview is explicitly progressive and secular, shaped by an editorial philosophy that views conservatism as inherently regressive. The outlet is openly antagonistic toward traditional Christianity, constitutional originalism, capitalism, and the nuclear family. At the same time, it presents itself as intellectually sophisticated, using academic jargon, sarcasm, and satire to elevate its ideological messaging.
Far from pretending objectivity, Salon operates as a progressive culture war platform, celebrating liberal moral frameworks while demonizing any dissent. It promotes social justice activism, postmodern relativism, and sexual liberation as moral imperatives—while dismissing conservative, religious, or nationalist perspectives as not just wrong, but dangerous.
While its influence has waned compared to its peak years, Salon continues to reach a large audience through search engines, social media, and syndication, especially among university-educated progressives and left-leaning policy wonks.
Salon on 20 Ideological Flashpoints
1. Election Integrity and Voter Laws
Salon frequently depicts Republican efforts at election reform as voter suppression rooted in racism. It opposes voter ID laws, signature verification, and ballot chain-of-custody measures. Articles warn of a “war on voting” and push the narrative that democracy is at risk unless progressive election reforms (like universal mail-in voting) are enacted.
2. Abortion and Reproductive Rights
Salon is one of the most aggressively pro-abortion media outlets in the U.S. It frames abortion as healthcare, liberation, and even a social good. Articles minimize or mock fetal personhood and often attack pro-life advocates as religious extremists. It routinely platformed voices that “celebrate” abortion and argue that moral stigma should be abolished entirely.
3. Gender Identity and Transgender Policies
Salon enthusiastically supports gender ideology, referring to critics of “gender-affirming care” as bigoted or ignorant. It advocates for youth transitions, attacks parental rights laws, and frames objections to males in female sports or prisons as dangerous transphobia. It elevates fringe academic views that erase biological sex distinctions.
4. Race and Systemic Racism
Salon embraces Critical Race Theory and the ideology of systemic racism as dogma. White privilege, whiteness studies, and equity mandates are promoted as necessary for justice. Conservative views on race are dismissed as coded racism or fascism. It platformed arguments that property, policing, and even punctuality are “tools of white supremacy.”
5. Climate Change and Energy Policy
Salon treats climate change as an existential emergency requiring radical transformation. It supports the Green New Deal, carbon taxes, degrowth policies, and a swift end to fossil fuel use. It portrays skeptics as science-deniers and fossil fuel executives as villains. The outlet frequently glorifies climate protests, including school walkouts and civil disobedience.
6. Immigration and Border Security
Salon supports open-border policies, sanctuary cities, and mass amnesty. It attacks border enforcement agencies like ICE as inhumane, routinely compares deportation to ethnic cleansing, and defends illegal immigration as an act of resistance against colonialism. Concerns about border security are dismissed as xenophobic fear-mongering.
7. Israel and the Middle East Conflict
Salon takes a consistently anti-Israel stance. It elevates Palestinian voices accusing Israel of apartheid and genocide, often without balance or context. Israeli self-defense measures are condemned, and the outlet regularly features pieces critical of Zionism. U.S. support for Israel is framed as complicity in colonial violence.
8. Second Amendment and Gun Control
Salon advocates strict gun control and often blames the NRA and gun owners for mass shootings. It supports banning “assault weapons,” implementing red flag laws, and restricting civilian firearm access. Defensive gun use is ignored or dismissed, while gun culture is equated with toxic masculinity.
9. LGBTQ+ Rights and Religious Liberty
Salon treats LGBTQ+ advocacy as a civil rights crusade and sees religious liberty as a threat to progress. It promotes drag shows for children, the redefinition of marriage, and state coercion against Christian business owners. Those who refuse to affirm LGBTQ+ dogma are portrayed as hateful and dangerous.
10. COVID-19 Policy and Mandates
During the pandemic, Salon fully backed lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking, and digital censorship. It labeled dissenting doctors and scientists as quacks, dismissed natural immunity, and opposed religious exemptions. Government overreach was celebrated if it aligned with public health narratives.
11. Policing and Criminal Justice
Salon supported the “defund the police” movement and amplifies arguments that policing is inherently racist. It advocates for restorative justice, bail reform, and abolitionist rhetoric. Victims of crime are de-emphasized when their cases don’t align with progressive narratives, while riots and unrest are often excused as righteous anger.
12. Education and Parental Rights
Salon champions teachers’ unions and DEI education while attacking parents who object to gender ideology or CRT as far-right ideologues. It opposes school choice, criticizes homeschooling, and mocks parental oversight as reactionary. The outlet supports the sexualization of public school curricula under the banner of “inclusion.”
13. Censorship and Big Tech
Salon supports aggressive content moderation and censorship to curb “misinformation.” It cheered Twitter and Facebook’s efforts to suppress conservative viewpoints, including the Hunter Biden laptop story. The outlet believes government should regulate speech online in the name of safety and progress.
14. January 6 and Political Violence
Salon refers to January 6 as an attempted coup and compares it to 9/11. It demands harsh punishment for participants and defends the DOJ’s prosecution methods. In contrast, the outlet downplays or justifies Antifa, BLM riots, and violence against pro-life or conservative groups as “mostly peaceful.”
15. Corporate Wokeness and ESG
Salon praises corporations that adopt progressive ESG and DEI policies. It celebrates companies that push LGBTQ+ branding, environmental pledges, and race-based hiring initiatives. It mocks conservative backlash as ignorance or bigotry and supports government pressure on companies to promote social justice.
16. Hunter Biden, Biden Family, and Political Corruption
Salon has mostly ignored or dismissed credible allegations against Hunter Biden. It framed the laptop scandal as Russian disinformation and claimed investigations were partisan distractions. It shows deference to Democratic power structures and resists journalistic scrutiny of left-leaning political elites.
17. Trump and the Republican Party
Salon is arguably among the most Trump-deranged outlets. It uses terms like fascist, authoritarian, and cultist with abandon. MAGA voters are mocked as ignorant, bigoted, and dangerous. The GOP is portrayed as morally bankrupt and a threat to American democracy.
18. Affirmative Action and Racial Preferences
Salon supports racial preferences in hiring, admissions, and government contracts. It opposes colorblind policies, celebrating identity politics as a form of reparative justice. It condemns the Supreme Court’s rollback of affirmative action and often depicts merit-based systems as inherently racist.
19. International Institutions and Sovereignty
Salon defers to global institutions like the UN and WHO and supports international treaties that bind U.S. policy to global standards. It supports pandemic treaties, climate agreements, and global governance frameworks as morally superior to national sovereignty.
20. Culture War Issues
Salon promotes virtually every progressive cause in the culture war. From drag queen story hours to radical redefinitions of family and gender, it cheers the deconstruction of traditional norms. The outlet mocks biblical morality, treats Christianity as a source of oppression, and frames traditional values as white Christian nationalism.
Final Evaluation and Conclusion
Evaluation: Rage as Righteousness
Salon’s brand of journalism is not aimed at truth-seeking but at moral performance. It weaponizes progressive anger and presents it as virtue. Every headline, every op-ed, and every “news” story serves to reinforce the message that conservatives are bigots, Christians are theocrats, and America’s founding institutions must be dismantled to make way for a new, woke utopia.
While once considered a hub for provocative cultural criticism, Salon has devolved into a parody of the far Left. It filters every issue through a lens of intersectionality, grievance, and outrage. There is little nuance and even less charity for opposing views. Its writers operate as digital missionaries of the progressive faith—preaching equity, queerness, climate alarmism, and CRT with evangelical zeal.
Salon doesn’t report on events as much as it scolds the reader into compliance. It is openly hostile to traditional values, religious liberty, and limited government. Its view of progress is one in which history is erased, norms are reversed, and dissenters are punished. And its declining influence has only intensified its vitriol.
Why Salon Belongs in the Hall of Shame
Salon earns its place in the Hall of Shame for embodying everything that has gone wrong in progressive media. Its sins include:
- Ideological Intolerance: It has no room for disagreement, nuance, or honest debate. Dissent is labeled hate, and those who express it are demonized.
- Smearing the Faithful: It frequently attacks biblical Christianity, traditional morality, and theologically conservative voices as dangerous, oppressive, or “anti-democracy.”
- Promoting Pseudoscience and Pseudo-scholarship: Salon elevates ideological narratives over data, especially on issues like gender, race, and climate.
- Outsourcing Morality to the Mob: It empowers cancel culture, doxxing, and online shaming as legitimate tools of political enforcement.
- Abandoning Journalism for Activism: It no longer attempts to inform the public but to indoctrinate it—one emotional screed at a time.
In its current form, Salon is not a news outlet. It is a cultural battering ram—a tool of radical deconstruction aimed at family, faith, history, and liberty. Its writers and editors don’t merely oppose conservative ideas; they view them as evil. And in doing so, they model the very extremism they claim to oppose.
Salon belongs in the Hall of Shame because it serves as a warning—of what happens when journalism surrenders to ideology and scorn replaces reason.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
MMXXV
christiannewsjunkie@gmail.com
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