Yes, Read Bari Weiss' The Free Press
So, a few months ago, I signed up as a paid (12 month) subscriber to Bari Weiss' The Free Press. I thought it could be a lively addition to my daily diet of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post (along with the sports pages of The Boston Globe).
My take: Yes, the FP can be fairly Snarky, overly so. Still, it is generally fearless and free of Dogma. It has, blessedly, a sense of humor. And a knack for provocation, in a good way, as in its conversation making piece by NPR’s Uri Berliner on how NPR had succumbed to a rote (and boring) liberal political-correctness. That’s the one that prompted my subscription. (Berliner is now on the FP staff as a senior editor.)
Another timely provocation: Historian Niall Ferguson’s piece on how “We’re All Soviets Now,” on bloated, geriatric America. I don’t know, are we? Another conversation well worth having.
Now, I still treasure my newspapers (especially in print form, delivered on the driveway, consumed with my morning coffee), but let’s face it, the American press could use some reinvigoration. The FP is best thought of as a “second read”—a read on the headlines one is already familiar with. Magazines supposedly serve that function, but they often feel stale to me.
My suggestion is simply to check it out for a month or so. And to do so with an open mind, because there’s a lot of nonsense written about the FP, as in it is somehow a new MAGA voice on the media landscape. Please. It’s fairly eclectic, as can be seen now in the debate it is having, on its ‘pages,’ on whether Democrats should be standing behind Joe Biden.
And what are the alternatives? Puck and Graydon Carter's Air Mail are constantly pitching me. But they both feel like derivatives of the Vanity Fair, celebrity-fixated formula, geared to Hamptons/LA type readers. No Thanks. I’m a Cape Cod guy.