Here's the formula:
1. Catchy Headline.
2. Contrarian Thesis.
3. Some Statistics.
4. Straw Man Argument.
5. Smirking Tone.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
To be fair, the newspapers I read are worse. They just chase ambulance stories like the NIU thing or do press releases.

You hit the nail on the head, though it has been commented on before. (In fact, I believe I saw an article to that effect on Slate once - something like, "we're too contrarian." That's just getting wayyyy too meta for me).

But I think that compared to any other site that's this mainstream - remember, owned by the Washington Post - Slate is a breath of fresh air. Item (2) is the key - just getting these sorts of theses out there is worth it, even if there tend to be persistent problems with overreaching headlines and smarmy attitudes.

I've noticed that Slate is definitely degrading into a political hack site. Notice after the format change a year or so back the editor's picks are universally supportive of the articles, rather than simply observant and well written. In fact notice that when an article receives nothing but poor reviews by readers that it's quickly pulled from the lists, even when the comments are rather excellent.

The only constant so far has been Saletan, and he's under constant attack.

Exactly. I've always thought this! Especially the William Saletan stories, but also just in general.