The Free Press
The Free Press started as a reaction. Many of us were stuck in the stifling cultures of legacy media, which saw curiosity about the “wrong” subjects—and therefore curiosity itself—as a threat, and the old norms of honesty and fairness as insufficient tools in our uncertain age. There was no such thing as hyperbole in language directed at the hyperbolic Donald J. Trump and his supporters. If journalists broke the old rules of their craft—even flagrantly so—it was in the service of the cause, a good cause, the only cause.
No apologies are likely to be issued for all those stories that were, in the end, wrong. The Pulitzers for Russiagate coverage still sit on their mantels.
Underpinning all of it was an idea that norms could be shattered—just for a little while—in order to beat the ultimate norm-breaker. As though norms formed by the traditions, values, and discipline of the generations who crafted them, trusted in them, and handed them down would be sitting there waiting to be picked up again just as soon as this was all over. Because it would certainly be over soon enough.
The Free Press was started as an outlet by and for people who said: no. Who insisted: The old values still matter. In this way, it has always been a new publication doing a very old-fashioned thing.
Whereas many in the legacy press took the election of Trump itself as evidence that the media failed, we see our jobs differently. None of us got into journalism to work for political candidates. None of us became reporters, writers, or editors to be mouthpieces for a party. We became journalists to pursue the truth—and to tell it, plainly, when we discover it—knowing full well that tomorrow might bring new facts to light requiring revision and correction, because truth is not a fixed absolute. It cannot be distilled in a test tube, or replaced by a narrative, though many these days are trying to do just that.
There will be plenty of publications who will, once again, become #Resistance warriors under this new administration. Others who have promised independence are sounding more like MAGA cheerleaders. If that’s what you seek, there will be plenty of options.
We are promising something different.
From us, you can expect the same sharp, fierce, honest news and opinion that we have worked hard to deliver since the day we started. You’ll get deep investigations, gimlet-eyed humor columns, and erudite British Sundays. You’ll also get corrections, because we fully expect to make mistakes, and counterarguments, because if we knew the answers in advance, we wouldn’t be The Free Press.
We do not believe 2025 is a special year to suspend our values. We’ll cover a Trump presidency just as we would have covered a Kamala Harris one. As the first few days of Trump’s second term have made clear, we’re entering a transformational period in American life and beyond. We’re going to see massive changes in the administrative state, as well as at the border and in our trade policies. We’re going to see tech leaders as political leaders, an effort at cost-cutting, a referendum around health, and a backlash around sex and gender. But new stories don’t change the old values.
And as the legacy media is finding, once you’ve kicked over the guardrails, it’s very hard to ever go back. Case in point: PBS NewsHour.
The publicly funded network’s flagship news show sees itself as a paragon of journalistic sobriety. But on the very first day of the new administration, NewsHour reported that: “Billionaire Elon Musk gave what appeared to be a fascist salute Monday,” adding that he raised his hand “in a salute that appeared similar to the ‘Sieg Heil’ used by the Nazis at their victory rallies.”
Watch the video with audio. Musk says, “My heart goes out to you,” after he hits his chest and thrusts his arm out. It might be a little intense, a little awkward. (Not exactly out of character for Musk.) Trying to start an Elon Musk is a Nazi doing literal Nazi salutes panic demonstrates how little the media has changed—and why so few people trust it. Musk, a person with historic levels of power, is worthy of fierce and sustained scrutiny. But the legacy media continues to discredit itself with cheap shots, and continues to find itself defanged when it lands on something right, something people should really pay attention to. How seriously will anyone take PBS the next time it has a story about Musk? The logic here isn’t rocket science. When journalists ditch their old values, they lose their old credibility.
You—our subscribers—came to us for this very reason. And by becoming subscribers, you’ve built a new newsroom. Like the journalists who fill that newsroom, you are from every tribe of our modern, subdivided world, even as you reject the idea that our differences are the most important thing about us. Every reader survey we do shows that you are looking for the same thing: an island of sanity in a world gone mad, a place that still believes that disagreement does not mean dislike, and where people are defined by so much more than who they vote for. And you have found that refuge in The Free Press and in one another.
As we get to work covering this presidency, these are the standards we want you to hold us to. We won’t follow anybody’s line. We’ll play it straight. In assessing a story’s importance, our lodestar is not partisan political interest, but the public interest. We will call a success a success, and a failure a failure. And we’ll do our best to help you make sense of the things that aren’t one thing or another.
Readers will object to some of our stories or the views expressed by columnists and contributors. To that we say: Good. If we’re not challenging your views, we’re not doing our jobs properly. Also: Send us a letter, and let us know why. It’s not just that we respect our readers’ intelligence and independent judgment—it’s that we learn from you and are proud to publish the best of your responses.
On Trump: We promise to take him seriously, scrutinizing him and his administration closely but fairly. We promise to show an open-mindedness and curiosity when it comes to explaining Trump’s win and what his administration is trying to do. If his actions serve the public interest, we’ll say so. And when they threaten it, we’ll say that, too, as we did in a recent editorial criticizing his pardons for the January 6 rioters who assaulted police officers.
We are committed to civil discourse and good-faith disagreement; to deciphering and reporting what is actually true; to making sense of things. In all matters, we will be open-minded but not naive.
Above all, our attitude as this new era begins is that we are Americans, and we hope our country is well-served by the next American president, because we care deeply about the American project. We remain committed to the ideals set forth in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We believe in and defend democracy. We reject violence, whether from the left or the right. We stand, as always, on the side of civilization against barbarism and mobs of all stripes.
If there is anything that will change in 2025, it will be this: We are growing. Thanks to your support, The Free Press has been able to hire more journalists and broaden our reach to encompass topics you tell us are important: economics, religion, science, health, and culture. In the year to come we’ll have more stories, more news, more in-depth coverage. We’ll have more subscriber conversations, more opportunities for you to meet each other, and more debates.
If you’re as excited about this community as we are, why not join? You can do so by subscribing here.
The old values in a new newsroom. A Free Press for free people.
Donald Trump, just sworn in as the forty-seventh president, was reelected to be a wrecking ball to the Beltway elites. And while this populist moment feels unprecedented, Eli Lake, host of our new show Breaking History, says it’s not—the rebuke of the ruling class is encoded in our nation’s DNA. Listen to the first episode below or wherever you get your podcasts.