The Free Press is reportedly being acquired by Paramount for somewhere between $100-$200 million

The mainstream media and leftie Tweeters are losing their minds. I'm on Team Let's Do Something Different. But, the math on this one is crazy.

A few of you have DM’ed me to ask what I think of the pending acquisition by Paramount of The Free Press. I’ll give you my thoughts here but I’ll preface all of this by saying that I know Bari. I don’t know her know her. We’ve never actually met in person. We aren’t friends. But we are friendly. We have talked on the phone and XX-XY Athletics has been featured in The Free Press. As have I. That’s the preface. Here are my thoughts.

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Puck News has reported that a deal for Paramount Global — which is now the parent company of CBS News — to buy Bari Weiss’ The Free Press is “on the 1-yard line.”

Leftie media is losing its mind over this.

They seem to think they are owed forever influence even when they have proven themselves liars and not worth listening to.

Sorry, old school media — you don’t get to stay in your cushy in charge spot when you lied about everything from covid to Biden’s mental acuity to men who think they are women actually being women for the last 15 years.

You have to deliver content that 1) is of interest and is relevant to people’s lives; 2) generates trust. You failed. And there are new sheriffs in town. Sorry if you don’t like it but it’s your own fault. You squandered any trust once granted to you. People want something new. You’ve left us to cobble together our own media diet and we have to pull from all over the place in order to get some semblance of truth. I pull, in part, from The Free Press. I don’t agree with them on all things but I wouldn’t read a publication that I agreed with on all things, that didn’t challenge me, that just told me what I want to hear.

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About The Free Press potential acquisition, The Nation says that “Vile Grifters Are Taking Over Establishment Media.” Huff Post calls Bari “the polarizing editor and founder of The Free Press.” Which isn’t so bad really, I guess. Salon refers to Weiss as “the polarizing editor and founder of conservative outlet The Free Press” and calls Bari a “controversial figure,” though the piece now seems to have been taken down.

Taylor Lorenz — former Washington Post, New York Times and Daily Beast “journalist” — writes: “The right wing grift economy is undefeated.”

Jill Filipovic, who covers gender for the New York Times, and was a proud covid moderate (school closures went on too long but we didn’t know; the vaccines are amazing — better than we could have ever hoped for; I don’t wear a mask outside and I’m traveling in 2021, see I’m a very independent thinker!) moans that CBS under Weiss’ guidance will now be covering dumb stuff like “whatever trans kids are up to.” Given that she covers gender for The New York Times I’m not sure why she attempts to minimize the issue of changing genders but ok.

Filipovic has written many insightful articles on why men must be able to pee in the ladies and other trans bathroom screeds so I’m not sure why she’s offended by The Free Press also writing about the subject but from a different perspective. Except I do know why she’s offended and minimizing it as whatever trans kids are up to. She’s trying to say that The Free Press is obsessed with fringe issues that don’t really matter. But they only don’t matter if you disagree with her on the topic. And right now on the front page of the The Free Press website are articles on China, Trump testing his constitutional limits, MAHA making things worse, and why ending vaccine mandates is a bad idea. How very right wing and excessively focused on fringe issues no one cares about!

Side note: the covid “moderates” like Filipovic are my least favorite covid people. They give cover for all the insane restriction people by making their brand all about restrictions in moderation are good, and some restrictions are necessary we just need the right ones.

My view: restrictions to our civil liberties are bad in all instances. Because when government says I’ll give you safety in exchange for your freedom the line for what is dangerous and therefore what is an acceptable limit to our freedoms will be manufactured. That’s authoritarianism.

Back to The Free Press.

I wouldn’t call Bari or The Free Press “conservative.” I’d argue the pro-Israel views are considered “conservative” in the world today but weren’t 10 years ago. And I’d argue that the views put forth by The Free Press are largely classically liberal as in very much for free speech and against cancel culture.

The word “heterodox” is thrown around pretty frequently which is probably correct. But Bari is very much pro-Israel which a lot of people — especially lefties right now, but not exclusively lefties — really hate so she consistently gets the “conservative” label, meant as a smear.