The Free Press (Bari Weiss media)

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The Free Press
FormerlyCommon Sense (2021–2022)
Company type News media
FoundedJanuary 2021;4 years ago (January 2021)
Founders
Headquarters New York, New York, United States
Website thefp.com

The Free Press (The FP, originally as Common Sense) is an American Internet-based media company based in New York, New York, founded by journalist Bari Weiss and her spouse Nellie Bowles. [1] [2] The company started as a newsletter in 2021, [3] [4] and grew into an associated media company in 2022. [1]

Contents

In August 2025, Weiss said the company was valued at over $200 million. [5] In September 2025, it was reported that CBS News was in talks to acquire The Free Press and make Weiss editor in chief or co-president of the network. [6]

History

Origins

Weiss and Bowles, then a reporter at The New York Times , launched Common Sense as a newsletter on the Substack platform on January 12, 2021, after Weiss resigned from The Times. Within a week, the newsletter had brought in $80,000 in annual subscription revenue. Weiss described Common Sense as a "newsletter for the 21st century". By October, the newsletter had more than 100,000 subscribers, including enough paying subscribers to hire a staff of five people. [1] [3] [7] [8] The newsletter was named after the political pamphlet of the same name by Thomas Paine. [4] It covers politics, culture, and current events. [9] [10] [11] [12]

In March 2022, Weiss raised between $1 million and $5 million to expand the venture from investors such as venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and David Sacks; former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz; Allen & Company; and former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. [13]

In June 2021, as part of Common Sense, Weiss launched the Honestly podcast, which has since featured guests including Kim Kardashian, Bill Barr, and Andrew Yang. [14] [15]

Rebrand as The Free Press

Weiss rebranded Common Sense as The Free Press in 2022. [9] [10] In 2022, she expanded The Free Press into a media company with a dozen staff and writers as well as contributors and a subscription-based business model. [9] [10] The Free Press also hired Andy Mills, former producer of The Daily, to develop audio programming for the company. [1]

By October 2023, the company employed about 25 staffers in New York City and Los Angeles. [16] Journalists and writers who have written for The Free Press include Emily Yoffe, [1] Michael Shellenberger, [1] and Joe Nocera. Regular contributors include Douglas Murray and Vinay Prasad.[ citation needed ]

In December 2024, Wall Street Journal editor Dennis K. Berman was hired as the company's first publisher and president. [17] In April 2025, The Free Press added author and economist Tyler Cowen, legal scholar Jed Rubenfeld, writer Coleman Hughes, journalist Matthew Continetti, and author Batya Ungar-Sargon as regular columnists. [18] [19]

In 2025, Semafor reported that journalist Michael C. Moynihan resigned from the The Free Press. He was critical of the direction of the publication, saying, "[One] didn't have to be especially prescient to spot those 'anti-woke' types who would just slowly become MAGA flunkies." [20]

Events

The Free Press expanded into events in 2023, holding its first event in September 2023—a debate over the sexual revolution featuring Grimes, Louise Perry, Anna Khachiyan, and Sarah Haider. The sold-out event at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles was attended by 1,600 people. [16] During 2024, The Free Press held live debate events in San Francisco, Dallas, Washington, D.C. and New York City. [21]

Subscribers

As of August 2024, the site had over 100,000 paid subscribers and over 750,000 total subscribers. Substack confirmed that it was the top newsletter on the platform by revenue. It is also at the top of the leaderboard at Substack for politics. [13] [22] As of December 2024, The Free Press had over 136,000 paid subscribers and was taking in at least $10 million annually. [17]

Reception

The New York Times described The Free Press as "an unflinching alternative to traditional media organizations." [6] Conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has criticized The Free Press for what he views as its reluctance to stand up for the free-speech rights of anti-Israel activists. [23] [24] Writing for The New Statesman , the liberal journalist Ross Barkan described the organization as "unapologetically hawkish and anti-Palestinian". [25] The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft described it as "a pro-Israel media outlet often sympathetic to the neoconservative worldview". [26] Politico described it as a "conservative digital media outlet". [27] David Klion wrote in The Guardian that Bari Weiss "has used the Free Press to empower rightwing factions within established elite institutions" to suppress progressive and pro-Palestine views. He cited as examples, The Free Press's criticism of NPR and their reporting on the Trump administration investigation into alleged antisemitism at Columbia University. [28]

Coverage

The founding of the University of Austin was first announced in then Common Sense in an article by founding president Pano Kanelos. [29] [30] [31]

In December 2022, The Free Press published information about the Twitter Files after Twitter CEO Elon Musk provided Weiss with access to records of Twitter's internal communications. [14] [32] The information Weiss discussed included blacklisting of accounts and suppression of trending topics. [8] [33] Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger shared the inaugural Dao Prize for Excellence In Investigative Journalism, awarded by the conservative organization National Journalism Center, for their Twitter Files coverage. [34] [35]

In early 2023, Megan Phelps-Roper hosted a podcast series at The Free Press titled The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling, featuring interviews with Rowling and others on all sides of the cultural conflicts surrounding the author and her views on transgender people. [36] [37] The podcast series had over 5 million listeners. [38]

In late 2023, articles from The Free Press condemned the October 7 attacks on Israel and criticized mainstream media coverage of the ensuing war for what it says is the spread of misinformation. [39] [35] Around October 22, Weiss alleged that vandals scrawled antisemitic graffiti outside the office of The Free Press. [40]

In 2024, The Free Press first reported on a video of NYU professor Amin Husain denying sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October attack on Israel and describing New York as a "Zionist city" at a Students for Justice in Palestine rally. NYU suspended Husain after the video and news story were publicized. [41]

In August 2025, The Free Press reporters Olivia Reingold and Tanya Lukyanova investigated the pre-existing health problems of Palestinian children starving in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza famine. [42] The report was criticized by the president of Refugees International who said that children with pre-existing conditions were the most susceptible to famine. Reingold received support from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for her reporting. [28]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fischer, Sara (December 13, 2022). "Bari Weiss reveals business plan for buzzy new media startup". Axios. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  2. ↑ Elliott, Vittoria. "Trump's Twitter Ban Was Unfair, but Not for the Reason You Think". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  3. 1 2 Stelter, Brian (October 17, 2021). "Bari Weiss' next act: a Substack newsletter that serves as 'the newspaper for the 21st century'". CNN. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Svetkey, Benjamin (December 22, 2022). "Bari Weiss's L.A. Adventure". Los Angeles . Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  5. ↑ Levingston, Ivan. "Bari Weiss seeks more than $200mn for media start-up The Free Press". Financial Times. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  6. 1 2 Hirsch, Lauren; Mullin, Benjamin (September 10, 2025). "Bari Weiss Closes In on Major Role at CBS News". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2025.
  7. ↑ Arends, Brett. "How much? Times walkout Bari Weiss breaks the rules, makes a mint". MarketWatch. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  8. 1 2 Dodgson, Lindsay. "Musk's media renegades: The anti-establishment writers including Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss chosen for the 'Twitter Files'". Insider. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 "Can Bari Weiss bite the hand that feeds her?". Semafor. December 18, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 "McCarthy's Rebellion & The Greene-Gaetz Civil War". Puck. December 21, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  11. ↑ "Vicious, Demented Animal Cruelty or Social Construct? Who's to Say?". National Review. September 20, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  12. ↑ Kafka, Peter (August 3, 2022). "The newsletter boom is over. What's next?". Vox. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  13. 1 2 Matt Flegenheimer (August 11, 2024). "Bari Weiss Knows Exactly What She's Doing". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Wikidata   Q128869565 . Retrieved August 11, 2024.
  14. 1 2 Grynbaum, Michael M. (December 5, 2022). "Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and a Very Modern Media Maelstrom". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  15. ↑ "The words GOP lawmakers may never be able to say". Roll Call. December 2, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  16. 1 2 Fox, Emily Jane (October 2, 2023). "Bari Weiss's Salon for the Disenfranchised Is Just the Beginning for the Free Press". Vanity Fair . Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  17. 1 2 Fischer, Sara (December 10, 2024). "The Free Press hires a publisher amid expansion". Axios. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
  18. ↑ Cowen, Tyler. "Tyler Cowen: Why I'm Joining The Free Press". www.thefp.com. Retrieved April 3, 2025.
  19. ↑ Weiss, Bari. "Bari Weiss: Big News from Our Newsroom". The Free Press. Retrieved April 4, 2025.
  20. ↑ Smith, Ben; Tani, Max. "Inside the identity crisis in anti-woke media". Semafor. Retrieved June 11, 2025.
  21. ↑ Weiss, Bari. "A Note from Bari—and Our Big Thanksgiving Deal". The Free Press. Retrieved February 13, 2025.
  22. ↑ "Independent journalist era takes off". Axios. August 13, 2024.
  23. ↑ Andrew, Sullivan (April 19, 2025). "Just made the mistake at looking at the publication that with increasing levels of nerve calls itself The Free Press". Substack. Retrieved April 29, 2025.
  24. ↑ Lewis, Helen (April 25, 2025). "Finally, Someone Said It to Joe Rogan's Face". The Atlantic. Retrieved September 21, 2025.
  25. ↑ Barkan, Ross (June 11, 2025). "Blind support for Israel has muzzled Bari Weiss's Free Press". New Statesman. Retrieved July 19, 2025.
  26. ↑ "The desperation of Gaza famine denialism | Responsible Statecraft". responsiblestatecraft.org. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
  27. ↑ "Amy Coney Barrett: Reports of a constitutional crisis have been greatly exaggerated". POLITICO. September 4, 2025. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
  28. 1 2 Klion, David (September 10, 2025). "Media Disgruntled NYT journalist to 'anti-woke' power grab: how far can Bari Weiss go?". The Guardian . Retrieved September 11, 2025.
  29. ↑ McHale, Patrick (November 8, 2021). "Higher-Education Critics Launch University of Austin". Bloomberg News . Archived from the original on November 8, 2021.
  30. ↑ Menchaca, Megan (November 8, 2021). "Coming soon: The University of Austin, focused on 'the intrepid pursuit of truth'". Austin American-Statesman . Archived from the original on November 9, 2021.
  31. ↑ Kanelos, Pano (November 8, 2021). "We Can't Wait for Universities to Fix Themselves. So We're Starting a New One". The Free Press.
  32. ↑ Peters, Justin (December 19, 2022). "The Great Internet Grievance War the Right Has Wanted Is Here. It Ain't Going Well". Slate Magazine. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  33. ↑ Wulfsohn, Joseph (December 15, 2022). "Bari Weiss claps back at critics saying Twitter Files 'cherry-picks' reporting: 'Twitter misled the public'". Fox News. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
  34. ↑ "Twitter Files Awarded Inaugural Dao Prize for Excellence In Investigative Journalism". November 2, 2023.
  35. 1 2 Bruell, Alexandra (November 30, 2023). "Bari Weiss's Surging News Startup Lures Readers Miffed at Media Coverage of Israel". The Wall Street Journal.
  36. ↑ Spangler, Todd (February 14, 2023). "J.K. Rowling Addresses Backlash to Her Anti-Trans Comments in New Podcast: 'I Never Set Out to Upset Anyone'". Variety. Retrieved April 20, 2023.
  37. ↑ Paul, Pamela (February 16, 2023). "In Defense of J.K. Rowling". The New York Times. New York. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  38. ↑ Carman, Ashley (April 21, 2023). "A Podcast About J.K. Rowling's 'Cancellation' Has Reached Over 5 Million Listeners". Bloomberg News.
  39. ↑ Weiss, Bari; Wiseman, Oliver (October 18, 2023). "When the Misinformation Comes From Inside the House". The Free Press. Retrieved October 23, 2023.
  40. ↑ Bari Weiss [@bariweiss] (October 22, 2023). "This was scrawled outside of our offices this week. If the antisemites who did this think it will intimidate me and the journalists of @TheFP, they don't know me, they don't know us, and they have no idea what we stand for" (Tweet). Retrieved October 23, 2023– via Twitter.
  41. ↑ Keene, Louis (January 25, 2024). "NYU instructor suspended after denying Oct. 7 atrocities at SJP event". The Forward . Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  42. ↑ Lennard, Natasha (August 19, 2025). "Bari Weiss's Free Press Wants You to Know Some Kids Being Starved by Israel Were Already Sick". The Intercept.
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