True/Slant fascinates journalists, bores readers

10.04.2009
Wall Street Journal gadget guru Walt Mossberg surprised me Thursday morning by devoting his hugely influential not to a smartphone, a desktop app, or an online tax service, but to a news and commentary site called . I figured that if Mossberg writes it up, it must have lots of value for his Personal Tech readers.

Well, no. Mossberg spent his entire column talking about True/Slant's business model, the pedigrees of its founder and writers, its non-traditional pay scheme for writers, its brazen courtship of advertisers (which I'm cool with), and what this all means for the field of journalism. He didn't talk about the site's actual content at all. He didn't point to a great story on True/Slant.

Having read True/Slant Thursday morning, I can't point to one either. Nor can I find anything about personal technology. True/Slant reads like without celebrity bloggers. The site's top story is a . Writer Matthew Greenberg gets props for restraining his rant to two and a half paragraphs, but here's a sample of his mixed-metaphor prose:

Anyone want to predict when the reality show train, having squandered the last of our good will while simultaneously siphoning off the last drops of crass at the bottom of the cultural cess pool, finally grinds to a halt?

The hype around True/Slant Thursday morning comes entirely from journalists intrigued by True/Slant's pay-per-page view scheme, plus its plan to let advertisers have blogs on the site. For those of us who don't care about these machinations and just want something to read, the site fails to ignite.

I took these notes while poking around Thursday morning: