You didn't expect us, on a Friday no less, to give credit to our favorite dart board Jon Friedman, now did you? Us either, but damn you MarketWatch — you keep running his stuff! It's in the odds that now and again he'll stop hitting foul balls and actually swing something relevant.

And today, friends, is that day as Jon-Jon tackles Salon, the "shouldn't it be dead yet?" online title that refuses to let rumors of financial ruin get in the way of serving interstitial ads.

Founded 10 years ago by David Talbot on the premise of offering non-MSM liberal-leaning journalism that you couldn't find elsewhere, Salon is about to embrace the right-wingers, welcoming the conservative talking heads into the fold while still maintaining its indie cred.

Even Friedman is in disbelief:

[Salon EIC Joan] Walsh understands the difficulty of tempering Salon's image. When we had breakfast in Manhattan last month, she told me, more defiantly than defensively: "We have more conservative readers than you think."

Being a gentleman, I resisted the urge to blurt out: "Oh yeah? And exactly how many would that be, Joan? TWO?"

It's Jon-Jon's sense of humor that really makes us want to coddle him. But now and again, it appears, he might just bring us something worth knowing.

Ten-year-old Salon.com is growing up [Jon Friedman, MarketWatch]
Related: All Jon Friedman coverage
Related: All Salon coverage