Melanie McFarland is the Senior Culture Critic for Salon.com, where she’s written about TV, film and popular culture since 2016. She is a three-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for Cultural Criticism, and was named Best TV Critic of 2024 at the L.A. Press Club’s National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. She was also a 2024 Mirror Awards finalist for best commentary for her longform feature, “A dude and a desk: Why women really don’t get to host late-night TV.”
McFarland was the president of the Television Critics Association from 2021 through 2023, and has been a member since 2003. She served on the board of the George Foster Peabody Awards between 2005 and 2011, and has served on juries for the American Film Institute and the Gotham Awards.
McFarland has lent her expert commentary to a variety of media outlets, including CNN, NPR, American Public Media, and the BBC. She also regularly guests on LAist’s AirTalk, and has essays featured in 2018’s “
McFarland’s work has also appeared in the Seattle Times, RollingStone.com, Vox, the Chicago Tribune, Geekwire, Rotten Tomatoes and Variety.
She frequently lurks on Bluesky, although the bluest sky you’ve ever seen is in Seattle, where she lives.
