January 10, 1998

In 3MR:

Slate Looks in the Mirror...Again

Slate Editor-in-Chief 1.0 Michael Kinsley once again takes journalists to task for saying Microsoft shouldn't be in the media business. Kinsley hems and haws, but makes a nice case in his Readme column from last Christmas:

"...the special concern about Microsoft entering the field is hard to understand. Microsoft has been founding new journalistic institutions (Slate, MSNBC, etc.)--not buying up existing ones. Thus Microsoft's media adventures add to diversity and competition among the media, rather than reducing it. This makes the complaints of journalists in particular about Microsoft getting into the journalism business especially puzzling. A journalist who objects to a new company getting into journalism is a journalist with a secure job."

But no matter how much Slate scrutinizes Microsoft, the fact is that it certainly mentions Microsoft a lot: A search through Slate for the word "Microsoft" turned up 744 hits. Positive or negative, that's a lot of publicity.