What's in a Name: This Free Press Isn't 'The' Free Press

THE Free Press is a right-leaning website that former New York Times opinion columnist Bari Weiss started after leaving the paper and claiming that her colleagues had ostracized her for her anti-woke views. Weiss has since become a darling of the billionaire-media set, jetting to Sun Valley to talk deals with the likes of the Murdochs, Redstones and Ellisons. 

In contrast, our Free Press, the 22-year-old advocacy organization that fights for your rights to connect and communicate, is rooted in the belief that a media system controlled by a few mega-wealthy individuals is inherently incapable of speaking truth to power. 

Since our founding in 2003, Free Press has fought to expose and resist the billionaire capture of our media system, defend journalists’ independence, protect public media, and demand real accountability from the FCC and Congress.

A case of mistaken identity

This Free Press is facing a serious case of mistaken identity.

I bring this up because we get a lot of calls, emails and texts and otherwise hear from people asking what our plans are now that Free Press is in charge of CBS News. We also hear from angry customers — people upset that they haven’t been able to log on to our website despite paying what seems to be a lot of money to access it. (Our website, www.freepress.net, is free to all comers, by the way). 

And more people are dialing the wrong number, now more than ever before. On Oct. 6, Paramount announced that it was purchasing THE Free Press for roughly $150 million. As part of the deal, Paramount’s boss, David Ellison, installed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News — even though she has zero experience in broadcast journalism. 

The move has reportedly sent heads spinning in the newsrooms of award-winning CBS programs like 60 Minutes, where reporters and producers fear that “a Trumpified Weiss is storming the citadel of objective journalism,” according to The New Yorker’s Jon Allsop.

It also sent our phones ringing.

Who we are

So, again, just to be clear: We’re Free Press — the million-plus member organization that actually takes the notion of a free, independent and adversarial media seriously. By design, our Free Press is not beholden to the big-money interests of media billionaires or aligned with the political power elite. We’ve never taken a cent from business, government or political parties. 

THE Free Press, on the other hand, is a beast of a different order — one that is now part of the billionaire-controlled media establishment that is capitulating to an authoritarian administration. 

While Weiss borrowed our name, the two organizations could not be more different. This Free Press doesn’t turn a blind eye to Trump’s censorship. Where we stand firmly behind the First Amendment, THE Free Press has attacked reporters for challenging the White House and cheered for crackdowns on pro-Palestine student protesters. 

While we fight to defend public media, THE Free Press has aligned with Trumpist calls to defund it. Where we are lighting the path to a diverse and equitable media system, THE Free Press frequently condemns inclusivity and slams anything it regards as “woke” or “antiracist.”

For us, free press is not a shallow branding exercise, but an ideal that is essential to the health of our democracy. This Free Press’ priority is to promote diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that accurately informs the public.

Who we aren’t

Our Free Press has been around long enough to understand the perils of giving too much control over the media to too few. We’ve consistently found that such accumulation of power and wealth makes it next to impossible for media giants like Paramount to fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of the Fourth Estate. This Free Press believes that the rights protected under the First Amendment extend to everyone — and not just to those who share Weiss’ pro-Trump perspective.

If you need to know more about THE Free Press’  biased approach to free speech, read Popular Information’s editorial review of the outlet, which finds that the opinion site “repeatedly distorts the truth to conform to its right-wing ideological agenda.” 

Or watch John Oliver’s scathing exposé of Weiss, in which he calls out THE Free Press’ “weapons-grade what-about-ism,” opinion-driven reporting that is sprinkled with inaccurate factoids designed to illustrate and justify Weiss’ migration toward full-throated Trumpism. That’s not a free press, but one cloaking its anti-antiracist agenda in free-speech rhetoric.

So expect CBS News to begin spending more energy fighting the supposed evils of “wokeness” and less energy exposing Trump’s efforts to undermine the U.S. Constitution.

Our Free Press doesn’t spend time schmoozing with media billionaires and politicians. Instead, we’re focused on pressuring Congress to investigate political interference in media mergers, like the one that joined Paramount/CBS to Skydance. We’re challenging FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s efforts to punish and censor news outlets that don’t toe the Trump line, and are mobilizing journalists and the public to support and defend newsroom independence.

Our Media Capitulation Index exposes the many entanglements between media owners and political power that often make it impossible for their news properties to hold the Trump administration’s feet to the fire. The index rates the cowardice of billionaire media tycoons and tracks their slide toward propaganda using a chicken scale. (Weiss’ new bosses at Paramount earned a four-chicken rating for “obeying” the Trump administration at nearly every turn.)

So when someone talks about the importance of supporting a free press, don’t confuse the sentiment with the billionaire-controlled media outfit that likes to wrap itself in the rhetoric of press freedom to serve the interests of an autocrat. Supporting a genuinely free press is about building a healthier media system, one that acts as a bulwark in defense of democracy. 

Fostering media that act in the interest of the American people — and not against us — is the work of this Free Press. Join us.