Hi, everyone. Bari here.

As I sit down to write this, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I keep coming back to one feeling: gratitude. Gratitude for my brilliant colleagues, many of whom are working this holiday. Gratitude for you, for reading and watching and listening to our work. And gratitude for the wild, wonderful community we’ve built together at The Free Press.

This year, that community grew in ways I never imagined.

We introduced a host of amazing new podcasts, including Conversations with Coleman, Breaking History with Eli Lake, and Old School with Shilo Brooks, as well as our first true-crime podcast, Spiral.

We brought on a slate of brilliant columnists, including Niall Ferguson and Tyler Cowen, and contributors like Jonathan Haidt. And we just launched The Weekend Press, with amazing culture coverage from Suzy Weiss, Elliot Ackerman, and many others. (Stay tuned this week for a very special new addition!)

We stepped up our livestream game in a major way, covering the biggest stories of the year in real time. More than a million people joined us for election coverage earlier this month. We also launched a dedicated Free Press app, held 19 live events around the country and, oh, joined forces with Paramount to help bring our work to as many people as possible.

But none of that has distracted us from our bread and butter: the stories you can’t find anywhere else, whether it’s Qatar’s hidden influence operations, an investigation into a supposed hate crime that was really one child’s desperate cry for help, our interview with Peter Thiel on how capitalism is failing young people, or Woody Allen reflecting on the life of Diane Keaton. And we’re just getting started—2026 is already shaping up to be our most ambitious year yet, and I’m so excited to tell you more about our plans in the coming weeks.

From day one, the promise of this publication was simple: to seek the truth and tell it plainly, and to treat readers like adults capable of making up their own minds. That is something that will never change.

If you value this kind of work, I’m asking you to become a paid subscriber today.

For a limited time, you’ll get our best offer: 25 percent off your first year. And if you’re already a paid subscriber, you can give the gift of The Free Press for that same 25 percent off.

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As we near a community of two million—a figure I would have found unimaginable when I first started this little pirate ship five years ago—it’s clear that we’re doing something right. We’re building a real community committed to seeing the world as it actually is. A community of free thinkers who know that free people deserve a free press.

Join us. I promise it will be worth it.

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—Bari