Our headline of the day is this from Mediaite on a hugely popular conservative website being sold:
Exclusive: Hot Air Acquired By Salem Communications
I read the headline and thought: “Someone bought Congress??”
The post, which needs to be read in full (some interesting details about owner Michelle Malkin and two of the sites most talented writers, Ed Morrisey and Allahpundit) also adds this:
Salem Communication defines itself as a leading U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values. Perhaps their most relevant property to this transaction is Townhall.com which claims itself to be the #1 conservative website. The “About Us” section of its website claims “Townhall.com pulls together political commentary and analysis from over 100 leading columnists and opinion leaders, research from 100 partner organizations, conservative talk-radio and a community of millions of grassroots conservatives.”
Sources claim that are no plans to merge either operations or editorial efforts of Hot Air and Townhall, however it makes sense that one might begin to see much more cross-promotion between the two sites now that they are both part of the Salem family.
Hot Air in many of its posts has been a conservative website of interest to those who don’t consider themselves conservative but who don’t feel that reading an idea they don’t agree with will cause incurable brain cancer. In most of the posts, which most assuredly take a stand, writers make it clear why they see things as they do since they usually make their case by providing in detail why they conclude as they do (this is different from name calling blogs or blogs that go after other blogs or blogwriters). Will any of this change with new ownership? The fact is, as a conservative website Hot Air has been much more than hot air. It has become an intriguing choice to ponder for those who seek a varied political reading buffet.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.