Pioneer online site Salon Media may be bought up by hedge fund

Control of one of the pioneering online publishers, Salon Media, may soon pass to activist hedge fund Spear Point Capital. New York Post columnist Keith Kelly reports that the 22-year-old venture has seen such declines in its revenue that its stock price has slipped to 8 cents a share (compared with its 1999 public offering at $10.50). It may make it easy pickings for Spear Point, which has been buying up shares in recent weeks. Salon was founded by David Talbot and a handful of refugees from the San Francisco Examiner in 1995 as one of the first entirely digital media outlets and has since been a liberal/progressive website with a reported audience that has grown to about 20 million monthly unique visitors.