The Free Press is an Embarrassment to Humanity
Substack is home to one of the worst “news” outlets to ever exist:
. It was made by Bari Weiss, a professional crybaby who seeks to be the victim in everything. She is a genocide enthusiast who believes that criticizing Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinian people is “antisemitic”. She is also quite transphobic and has pushed purposeful lies about trans healthcare. Because she refuses to grow up and be a decent human being, she has decided to make it everyone’s problem and founded Common Sense, which later became The Free Press. Why did she make a Substack? Well, the “About Us” page makes it clear:Originally called Common Sense, we focus on stories that are ignored or misconstrued in the service of an ideological narrative. For us, curiosity isn’t a liability. It’s a necessity.
Interestingly enough, it just happens that all these stories are ones that would only appeal to Breitbart readers and serve the ideological narratives of the far-right. My favorite claim of theirs is the very next paragraph:
Expect debates, scoops from trusted reporters, provocations from those thinking outside the lines, and live events that bring people with different views together into a truly diverse community.
Ah yes, thinking outside the lines and “truly diverse community”. It just happens that “thinking outside the lines” only applies to right-wing thought, and is quite orthodox, actually, on the right, and the “diverse community” is all right-wingers. No, seriously, please go find an article that isn’t just something you could read on The Blaze or Daily Wire. Go find a writer on here that wouldn’t fit right in with The Daily Caller. There is no diversity of thought on The Free Press. It’s a joke.
Now, I write all this to set up who they are. Here is where I reveal why I’m writing this op-ed and especially now. It’s due to two articles they released in the span of two days. Two articles so bad that I had to write this. The first is an article titled, “She Called a Kid the N-Word. The Far-Right Is Making Her Rich.” The headline isn’t why I’m writing this article. It’s the subheadline. What does the subheadline say? “The excesses of the woke era created a backlash so intense that the right now celebrates racism.” The right wing in this country is now pretending that the left forced them to be racist. Apparently, expecting a country to be civilized and not barbaric towards minorities is just such a burdensome demand that conservatives just have to be barbaric towards minorities now. They just have to! The left gave them no choice! It was either that or be a decent human being. What amazing diversity of thought and “thinking outside the lines”, Free Press! Truly, you couldn’t find such opinions anywhere else. Plus, it’s so important. Justifying racism doesn’t happen enough, and it is such an underserved market.
That said, that’s not the worst thing they published. No, that title goes to the second article I want to talk about: “The Gaza Famine Myth”. Just straight-up genocide denial. There are no truths in this article. Everything they say is a lie. The Free Press is just straight-up doing propaganda in support of genocide. All you have to do is see videos and photos from Palestinians in Gaza and hear and see their words to know that there is a famine and they’re getting no food. It is sick, vile, and disgusting what The Free Press, and specifically, Michael Ames, is doing. This isn’t the only pro-genocide article they’ve written. In the article, they even link to another article baselessly smearing Palestinian journalists as “Hamas”. Not only is The Free Press racist, but they also cover for genocide. I truly cannot think of anything more evil that a “news” outlet could do. Well, maybe argue for nuclear war, but that’s it.
The Free Press is one of the most vile “news” publications out there, meanwhile Substack and conservatives are promoting it. Read this load of crap Substack’s founders have to say about it:
We view The Free Press as an ideal partner for this initiative because of its longstanding presence on Substack, which extends back to its founding in early 2021, and because of its commitment to pursuing high-integrity journalism. The Free Press is old school in the best way, with meticulous editorial standards that it upholds through in-depth reporting, fact-checking, editing, original photography, and more. The Free Press, like Substack, is also dedicated to a business model based on subscriptions.
Oh dear lord. I’m sure it’s all these things if you think Fox News is actual news, sure.
As of late December, they have one million subscribers. One million. That means they have way more readers than that. This isn’t some small outlet that we can ignore. It may not quite be mainstream yet, not quite the A-tier of news publications, but it is definitely in the B-tier at this point. Millions, at least, have seen the headline claiming that it’s a myth that Gazans are being starved. Millions are being purposefully lied to. This outlet cannot receive enough condemnation. It is a disgrace to humanity. It’s a disgrace that any of these writers hold such views and it’s disgraceful that so many subscribe to them, or even worse, pay them, to spew this anti-human crap.
I’ll leave you with this Note because I think it’s important that everyone starts calling The Free Press “The Breitbart of Substack”.
Tom Grundy, a CIA agent who worked as Jimmy Lai's assistant at one time, runs The Hong Kong Free Press, formerly funded by the NED. When I see any "outlet" with a propagandistic title, I expect Propaganda. I prefer places like The Grayzone, who's title isn't selling out ideas for profit or someone who puts their name behind the product, aka The Hudak Report.