David Talbot

David Talbot (born September 22, 1951) is an American journalist, author, activist and independent historian. Talbot is known for his books about the “hidden history” of U.S. power and the liberal movements to change America, as well as his public advocacy. He was also the founder and former editor-in-chief of the early web magazine Salon.

Talbot founded Salon in 1995. The magazine gained a large following and broke several major national stories.

Since leaving Salon, Talbot has researched and written on the Kennedy assassination and other areas of what he calls “hidden history.” Talbot has worked as a senior editor for Mother Jones magazine and a features editor for The San Francisco Examiner, and has written for Time magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and other publications.

In addition to his work as an independent historian, Talbot has been deeply engaged in political activism, especially in his hometown, San Francisco, where he has campaigned for many progressive candidates and has been called “a leader in the fight to keep San Francisco affordable.” On his blog, Talbot offers frequent opinions on burning national and local topics.

Talbot was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. His father was actor Lyle Talbot. He attended the Harvard School for Boys but did not graduate after falling afoul of the school’s headmaster and ROTC program during the Vietnam War. After graduating from the University of California at Santa Cruz, he returned to Los Angeles, where he co-wrote with Barbara Zheutlin a history of the Hollywood Left, “Creative Differences”, and freelanced for Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, and other magazines. He later was hired by Environmental Action Foundation in Washington, D.C. to write “Power and Light,” a book about the politics of energy. After he returned to California, he worked as an editor at Mother Jones magazine before San Francisco Examiner publisher Will Hearst hired him to edit the newspaper’s Sunday magazine, Image. It was at the Examiner where Talbot developed the idea for Salon, convincing several of his newspaper colleagues to join him.

Salon is a web magazine based in San Francisco. Talbot has characterized Salon as aiming to be a “smart tabloid.” In 1996, Time magazine picked Salon as the web site of the year. Originally created to cover books and popular culture, the web site became increasingly politicized during the Clinton impeachment drama in the late 1990s. Salon broke from the mainstream press by defending the Clinton presidency and investigating the right-wing prosecutorial apparatus headed by Kenneth Starr and Rep. Henry Hyde, whose own infidelity Salon exposed.

Before stepping down as Salon’s CEO and editor-in-chief in 2005, Talbot stabilized the financially rocky web enterprise. Talbot returned briefly as Salon CEO in 2011 but has since left the company.

After leaving Salon, Talbot resumed his career as an author of popular history books. Talbot’s book, The New York Times bestseller, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, offers a potentially controversial view of the Kennedy presidency and assassination, and explores Bobby Kennedy’s search for the truth about his brother’s murder. Talbot is now working on a feature documentary based on Brothers. …

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