A Note from Bari—and Our Big Thanksgiving Deal

This Thanksgiving, I have 935,923 reasons to be grateful. Why? Because, as of today, that’s how many Free Press subscribers there are. It’s an incredible figure—nearly double the number this time last year.

Thank you, every last one of you, for your support.

We founded The Free Press based on a simple belief: that we weren’t the only ones fed up with an old media that had abandoned its most basic role. We thought that building a journalistic institution committed to the pursuit of truth seemed important and worth trying but would be very hard to pull off. Judging by the size of this growing community—and the outsize impact we are having on the culture—I think we were on to something.

This year, we’ve been working harder than ever to build a media company deserving of your trust. Here’s just a small taste of what we’ve been up to:

• We’ve covered our first presidential election. While the result surprised many in the mainstream press, it didn’t surprise us—or you. That’s because our reporters took Americans at their word on the issues that affect their day-to-day lives—from Peter Savodnik talking to working-class voters affected by twin disasters in East Palestine, Ohio, and Flint, Michigan, to Olivia Reingold reporting on the black Democrats suing Chicago over the migrant crisis. We brought you breaking news and analysis from the biggest moments of the campaign, including Salena Zito’s eyewitness account of the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and live coverage from both parties’ conventions. And we hosted a wide range of opinions on the choice the voters faced. Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris’s “Trump or Harris?” debate on Honestly was the best kind of disagreement, and is still worth listening to weeks after the election. And on election night, while MSNBC and Fox told their viewers what they wanted to hear, more than 600,000 of you tuned into our epic livestream, which The Atlantic called a “strange assemblage of iconoclasts and establishment castoffs.” We’re not sure they meant it as a compliment. We take it as one.

• Where The Free Press goes, the legacy media follows. Meanwhile, our reporting on everything from geopolitics to classroom politics has the old guard trying to keep up, with The New York Times, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and others all chasing our scoops. Uri Berliner broke the internet with his Free Press essay on how NPR lost its way. And Abigail Shrier’s reporting on trans healthcare was recently cited in the Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Skrmetti. The latest sign we’ve made it? We got a mention in The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs column last week.

• We’re also on your screens. This year, we released our first-ever documentary, launched three new video series and a regular live show hosted by Batya Ungar-Sargon and Michael Moynihan, who bring you our spin on the weekly news. And if you watch cable TV, you’ve probably spotted a familiar Free Press face on your screen. See Olivia Reingold on Fox, Peter Savodnik on CNN, and Nellie Bowles on Bill Maher.

• We’re in your ears, too. While our flagship podcast, Honestly, continues to bring you unmissable conversations about everything that matters—from Peter Thiel on why Donald Trump won to Jerry Seinfeld on the rules of comedy and life—we also launched Emily Oster’s new audio series Raising Parents, which debuted at number two on the podcast charts. Apple named my Honestly conversation with Abigail Shrier one of the most shared podcast episodes of 2024. (Listen to it here!)

• Finally, we’re coming to a city near you. Producing all this journalism requires long hours in the office. But when we can step away from our desks, we’re appearing at more and more live events. We took our America Debates series to San Francisco, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New York. We crisscrossed the country with our new Free Press book club, too. (Watch the latest installment—of me in conversation with Peggy Noonan—here.) Next year, expect more—more debates, more salons, more Free Press IRL.

I could go on, but Nellie says that by now, you’ve got the point.

We have very ambitious plans for 2025. And only you can help us deliver on them.

So for those of you who aren’t yet paying subscribers, we have a special offer. This Thanksgiving, we’re giving 25 percent off our annual subscription of $80 as a special Black Friday deal from now until Monday.

That’s a full year of unlimited access to all Free Press content for just $60. So forget the discounted ceramic pans and the final sale J.Crew sweaters languishing in your cart. None of those will give you the feeling of superiority you’ll get from supporting independent media all year long.

You can also get 25 percent off annual gift subscriptions, because nothing says “I love you”—or derails the family’s holiday get-together—quite like the gift of The Free Press. You’ll also get 25 percent off everything in our merch store, too. (Snap up those reasonably priced TGIF socks before the Trump tariffs hit, folx. Kidding—they’re made in America!)

Help us build an institution that Americans can trust—and become one in a million Free Press subscribers today.

With gratitude,

Bari