God Bless Monica Lewinsky
God
Bless Monica Lewinsky
Slate
had more
than 270,000 individual visitors in January. These are people, or at least
browsers, who visited slate.com at least once during the month.
As we have explained in
the past, we regard individual visitors--or, technically, "unique browsers"--as
the best measure of Web readership. It is not perfect: It treats a single,
brief drop-in and a dedicated daily visitor exactly the same when counting; for
technical reasons, some visitors don't get counted; and it doesn't include the
25,000 who get
Slate
by e-mail or the thousands more who are e-mailed "Today's Papers" every day. But the other common measurements--pages
served, or "hits"--are even more defective. Just for the record, though, in
December, we reported serving 140,000 pages a day. That is now up to about
200,000.
These
numbers have risen dramatically in the past few months, and especially in the
past few weeks. How to explain it? We like to think, of course, that it is due
to loyal
Slate
readers spreading the word about our splendid
editorial product. We also would like to--and do--credit our recent alliances
with America Online, the Microsoft Network, Hotmail, and the Motley Fool. But
it just might be that recent developments in Washington have had something to
do with it, too.
Like all responsible media outlets,
Slate
deplores the deplorable situation that forces us to discuss deplorable matters
such as alleged fellatio in the White House rather than global warming or the
strategic balance in the Persian Gulf. We deplore the tawdry chain of events
itself--whether the deplorable scenario should turn out to be a president
misbehaving and lying about it under oath, or the government brought to a halt
by the fevered imaginings of an overexcitable young woman. Whatever happened
exactly, it is deplorable. And we deplore it.
That said, we can't help
acknowledging that whether or not Monica Lewinsky serviced the president, she
certainly has serviced us. Not just us but CNN, the New
York
Times , Leno and Letterman, and every other outlet of news, analysis, and
commentary in every medium. She also has serviced the president's political
opponents, all of whom, of course, deplore the situation as much as we in the
media deplore it. For that matter the general public, though generally
disgusted (whether by the alleged activity or the process that made it a public
issue or both), has also gained considerable pleasure and excitement from this
admittedly deplorable episode.
Let us all, therefore, take a
brief moment off from all this deploring to say: "Thank you, Monica. Thank you,
thank you, thank you." And if there's anything we at
Slate
in
particular can ever do ... some software, perhaps?
We now
return to our regularly scheduled deploring. (This site works best using
Internet Deplorer TM .)
True
Story
So a guy
from CNN, a guy from a defense contractor, and a guy from an oil company are
talking at a Washington reception. It's around 1993. Someone asks the CNN guy,
"How are the ratings these days?"
CNN guy (hint: now at
Slate
): Not so good. We could use another war.
Defense contractor: So
could we.
Oil guy: So could we, as
long as it's in the Middle East.
Moral:
Oral sex saves lives! We don't need a war to give the media a boost after all.
Monica, thank you again. What it all does for the oil and defense industries is
less clear.
"Readme"
Special
The next Readme column will
be available two days early, on Wednesday, Feb. 18. It will contain the details
of our plan to begin charging for access to
Slate
and a special
offer for early sign-ups.
--Michael Kinsley
