From Our Kitchen Table to a Real Newsroom

Three years ago we were publishing stories from our kitchen table. Today I’m writing to you—more than 800,000 of you—from The Free Press newsroom in New York, surrounded by dozens of reporters, editors, and producers. We can fill about six kitchen tables.

We are growing fast—and in directions I could not have imagined when we began.

We love having you as a free subscriber. But I wanted to send an email with what we’ve have been up to lately to give you a sense of what a paid subscription to The Free Press supports.

First, check out this little sizzle reel, which we can’t stop watching:

Here’s some of what we’ve done so far just this month:

• We released the first episode of our new podcast, Raising Parents with Emily Oster, the world-famous economist and parenting expert. It spent this past weekend as a top-five podcast in the world, according to Apple, next to some guy named Joe Rogan.

• We kicked off a new initiative: The Free Press Fellowship—a two-year program for young reporters eager to pursue the kind of journalism that makes The Free Press live up to its name—and welcomed our first class of Free Press Fellows.

• We hosted another sold-out live debate—this one in Washington, D.C.—where Tyler Cowen and Katherine Mangu-Ward debated David Leonhardt and Bhaskar Sunkara on the state of the American dream. In case you missed it live, catch it here.

• We announced our fourth and final debate of our America Debates series: Should the U.S. Still Police the World? Bret Stephens and James Kirchick will face off against Matt Taibbi and Lee Fang on October 9 in New York City. It’s going to be an incredible night and tickets are almost gone, so get yours now.

• We launched a very special new series, Hezbollah’s Hostages, in partnership with our friends at the Center for Peace Communications. At great personal risk, victims and opponents of the terrorist group let us record and film them bearing witness to the reality Hezbollah hides.

• We published an interview between our own Ben Kawaller and Matt Walsh about Walsh’s new movie Am I Racist? Mainstream critics ignored the movie, despite the fact that it had the highest opening for a political documentary in twenty years. Meantime, our interview has 200,000 views and counting.

• As part of our mission to celebrate people who build rather than tear down, we debuted a series about a newlywed couple spending 12 months on the road to fall back in love with America.

• You also may have seen our reporter Tanya Lukyanova discussing her encounter with Trump’s would-be assassin on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Or on Fox. Or on NewsNation. 

• Or perhaps you’ve watched Michael Moynihan and Batya Ungar-Sargon pilot our new roundtable show with different all-star guests each week.

• Meanwhile, our reporting continues to drive change in the real world. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce cited our exclusive story on the bullying inside the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys and Student Workers of Columbia unions nearly a dozen times in their comprehensive report on how unions put politics above supporting the needs of their rank and file. Since we published our story in March, the House Committee has taken on thorough investigations into both organizations, which have led to congressional subpoenas and new legislation seeking to protect union members and better inform them of their rights.

• Earlier this month, the House Committee on Homeland Security cited two Free Press stories—about what’s driving Border Patrol agents to suicide and how nonprofits are making millions dealing with underage migrants—in an incendiary report about the border crisis.

• And just yesterday The New York Times published a piece about Canada’s mass graves hoax—two years after we covered it on Honestly. 

Most importantly of all: Thank you. 

More than 800,000 of you have joined The Free Press. You’ve joined because you believe in reviving fearless, independent journalism in service of a singular aim: the truth.

We’re called The Free Press but the kind of journalism we do costs money. So if you believe that a free people require a free press—and that America needs The Free Press now more than ever—please join our community of paid subscribers today.