a major resignation now an editor at the

New York Times showing up for work as a

Centrist that an American newspaper

should not require bravery she's saying

no one should be allowed to criticize me

please welcome Barry Wise anyone that

departs from wol Orthodoxy gets a lot

more heat a new consensus has emerged in

the Press but perhaps especially at this

paper if you don't have the right views

everything is caveat edited triple

quadruple amount of times should it take

courage to say that those who praise the

pristine Subways of Russia are not

journalists but propagandist should it

take courage to just say in public I

[Music]

disagree join me in welcoming Barry

Weiss to the

[Applause]

stage hi Barry

Barry thanks for being here thanks for

having me thanks for the cool weather

really appreciate it yes um Barry made

headlines in I'm going to give you a

little introduction even though most

everyone here knows who you are but you

made headlines in 2020 when you left the

New York Times criticizing it stance on

free speech and diversity of thought and

since then you've launched the Free

Press congrats I know a lot of folks

here are

subscribers um and the the Free Press

declares itself a a free press for free

people honest independent and fearless I

think we all respect and admire you for

your fiercely independent thinking and

direct and honest takes on current

events and social issues we feel like

you're a kindred kindred spirit yes a

besty I wish

um so this may be an audition let's see

well I don't know if you guys can handle

having a woman in I'm not sure no no we

can just not

sex so um look I want to start with a

very broad General um question that you

can take in any direction you want

what's going on in America what are the

two sides because it seems like a lot of

what

has as we've been hearing a lot about

and I think we're going to hear more

about throughout this

conference there are polarizing forces

at play and the PO the polls kind of get

defined differently but is there a

unifying thesis here um there's the

notion of populists and elitists is are

there elitists that say I'm an elitist

there's uh corporate and government

folks vers pocket square says you're El

yes uh my pocket square keeps slipping

um there's the conservatives versus the

Liberals I mean what what what is the

divide in the United States and what is

causing the polarity what how would you

think about the polarity that's emerged

I think there's two ways broadly that I

would answer that and obviously besties

push back on me as I know David sack

surely will um what one way to think

about it and I think Martin gurri has

written about this absolutely

brilliantly in his book The Revolt of

the public probably the most important

book written in the last 25 years read

it if you haven't strip press published

it say it again Martin gur's book it's

called the Revolt of the public and

broadly would he prophesied without

using the words Donald Trump or BLM or

any of the phenomenon that have reshaped

American political life over the past

several decades is the sort of um call

it the ren ades versus The Establishment

or The Outsiders versus the Insiders if

you want to understand how it can be

that Dick Cheney and kamla Harris are on

one side and Donald Trump and Tulsi

Gabbert and Robert F Kennedy whatever

you think of any of those people are on

the other that's how you have to

understand that I think another way that

I've been thinking about a lot though is

is sort of like there are three sides

that I see that are emerging and I think

the Free Press is trying to position

itself in what I believe is the broad

self-silencing

majority piece of the pie which is to

say there's a woke left there's

increasingly a woke right and then

there's the normal people and the normal

PE I mean this is what people come up I

went to a thing for my daughter's new

preschool yesterday and there were some

Free Press readers and they didn't come

up to me to talk about any particular

piece they just said thank you for being

normal and normal was the adjective that

almost all of them used and so I think

that that's also something that's

happening where you know I'm sure has

has has already been discussed at this

conference we have this Horseshoe in

which the left the identitarian sort of

anti-liberal left illiberal left sounds

eerily similar at times to the

illiberalism of the right and they sort

of are in this dance with each other and

the rest of us are feeling like when did

everything get so crazy and is there a

return to normaly and I'm not saying a

return to normaly in the sense of like

returning to some kind of like

neoliberal consensus I just mean a

return to the things that I think many

of us still believe are just basic

common sensical American values that

right now feel Under Siege let's talk

about the media's role in this you and I

have been career journalists um editors

and so when we were coming up they would

take your piece whatever you wrote and

just say well this is an opinion they'd

strike it out and say who are you

attributing this to there was a very

thoughtful process and then something

happened economically with link baiting

and maybe trying to get more clicks and

then this very strange thing happened

when Donald Trump got elected that I

think you and I both witnessed which was

journalists who

were you know thought of themselves as

independent and storytellers who would

just present the facts to an audience

then saw themselves um as part of the

resistance and that they had to stop

this individual um because they believed

he was Hitler and and the marketing when

you went to the guardian or the

Washington Post or the New York Times at

the bottom of the New York at the bottom

of a trump story would say if you want

us to hold truth to power and stop Trump

give us your credit card yeah and this

seemed like just bizarre moment maybe

you could just talk about that Paradigm

shifting because it happened during the

economic turmoil as well when journalism

got gutted I think it's deeper than I

think the the roots of this are deeper

than Trump we actually have a piece

we're running tomorrow afternoon called

when we started lying that's sort of a

view from someone that was in the Middle

East Bureau of the AP and seeing the

roots of this back in 20052 2006 and

what that piece argues and I think it's

exactly put is people don't really

understand that the fundamental job

description of mainstream journalism has

changed it used to be that the job of

Journalism and I still believe that this

is the job is to hold up a mirror to the

world as it actually is so people can

make sensible rational decisions about

where to send their kids to school about

where to live about who to vote for

about all of the things that are

important in this life tell the story

about reality as plainly and as

truthfully as you can that is plainly no

longer the goal I think of many main

mainstream I should put in quotes

American journalists the job description

as they see it is to Usher You toward

the correct political position that's it

and once you begin to understand that

things that seem crazy like wait how did

they not tell me about the hunter lap

Biden laptop story or why did they tell

me that the thing that I saw with my own

eyes which is the obvious mental decline

of the president of the United States

which is relevant to every single person

in this country and in the world was a

lie and once you start to understand

that you understand the misconstrual of

certain stories you understand the

absolute silence around others and

frankly that's why we're all here like

it's given this tremendous opportunity

for people who crave that thing that

journalism used to do the truth can you

well can you the truth yeah can you just

double yeah the truth just double click

into that like it's not like there's

like some Grand cabal of people that

decide let's obfuscate Biden fine let's

Elevate this so what does it what does

it actually mean day-to-day like how how

is it happening okay is it the money is

it the incentives what is happening

there's a few things that happened the

first as Jason was alluding to is that

the economic model changed it used to be

that if you ran a piece in the New York

Times your fear was you were going to

piss off The Advertiser that was running

next to the story once the business

model shifted you no longer were as

concerned about although you still are

to some extent about enraging you know

Proctor and Gamble you're worried about

enraging the reader right this is the

phenomenon that so many people have

talked about which is which is audience

capture which is as you know the

individual sub stalker is as susceptible

to this as the New York Times none of us

are free from that phenomenon either

people respond to your article and say

that was stupid or that pissed me off

and then you feel pressure to change

unsubscribe or unsubscribe no so think

about this Accord and and I I think that

these are public figures but um

something like 95 to 98% of readers at

the New York Times and I'm choosing that

only CU it's the experience I know most

intimately regard themselves as liberals

or progressives so if you write and I'm

thinking about my wife who writes about

in her book how she after the violent

rioting that happened in places like

Kenosha she was a business reporter went

and reported on those stories and found

that the story was unbelievably

complicated that many of these business

owners were minority small business

owners they did not have insurance they

were absolutely devastated by what

happened and you know what happened she

brought was an excellent story back to

her editors and they said let's wait

until after the election to run this so

that's the kind of thing that would

happen a lot and no there's not like

some secret cabal meeting that happens

where it says let's make sure that we

lie to our readers about Joe Biden's

mental state it's the exact same

phenomenon that everyone here feels in

any Social Scene or company or

institution that they're a part of which

is that human beings are social animals

and if you look at the kinds of people

that work at the New York Times They

went to the same 10 boarding schools or

fancy schools and the same 10 colleges

and they marinated in the same set of

ideas and they want their kids to go to

the same schools in Brooklyn Heights or

the upper west side and that creates

this very particular group thinking

phenomenon let me add one thing which is

that was always there the thing that I

think has changed a lot in the past

let's call it 20 years is that the very

places that used to be feeders to the

New York Times were no longer feeding in

sort of your standard Center left

liberal Democrat they were feeding in a

kind of person who believed in something

like Revolution and believed that their

job was to Fu that inside the New York

Times oh but how does that say more

about what does that what do you mean

well what I mean by that is that they

did not you could look at the values of

the New York Times and sorry okay wait

just go back a step so the people in the

New York Times are fancy basically is

what you're saying I'm not saying their

fanciness is sort of beside the point

point is that there was an archetype

yeah of course and then that archetype

shifted right and is that because the

feeder schools changed or is that

because what they were taught at those

schools changed it's because wokeness

happened to American liberalism and the

people that were speaking the language

of

progressivism all of a sudden

transformed the notion of what let's say

social justice was right all of a sudden

social justice wasn't about doing good

by the poor it was actually about a kind

of neoism and a resegregate all of a

sudden progressivism wasn't actually

about human flourishing and progress it

was about you know ensuring equality of

outcome rather than equality of

opportunity and I don't think that the

sort of that transformation which some

people have said oh wokeness has peaked

it's over it cannot be overstated the

thing that began at the margins and at

the fr

has moved into the center of American

institutional life and that is the story

of the transformation of the New York

Times and it's the story of the

transformation of Harvard and so many

other places where people all of a

sudden turned around and thought when

did everything get so insane is it a

story that ends in socialism as it has

in past lives I think that you know I'm

an optimist this is America and I think

that there's an unbelievable push back

to this phenomenon

but the push back I

believe we uh we we have Elon here this

afternoon right the push back and this

is where I guess I'm more of a radical

than a reformer I think I began at the

New York Times as a reformer believing

that I could make a difference and I God

Bless the people who are still trying to

do that I think there's a role for both

I think what has made me more of a

radical not politically but just in

terms of my posture has been that I've

become someone who believes that the way

to change those institutions is not to

give money to those places or join the

board of them or delude yourself with

the idea that you can transform them

from within it's to build new things and

in building new things and creating

competition it forces the other people

to to to change J give a voice to the

people if you if you wouldn't mind give

a voice to the people that want to Buck

the trend that want to be able to

respond to the statement that they are

morally bankrupt if they identify that

this is not the right path what what's

the conversation that and this is

happening with everyone I know in

schools in workplaces it's not just the

institution of the New York Times it's

all institutions okay it starts with

something very

simple give up the heroin needle of

prestige rip it out of your arm

immediately stop poisoning yourself your

families and your children with the

bankrupt notion that them getting into

Harvard or Yale is more important than

inculcating in them a sense of Love of

family of country and of all of the

things we used to think were

normal that to that that isn't clapping

cuz he went to Stanford

but to

me to me that it begins with that

because I I find myself in these

baffling conversations with people where

they say thank you for what you do I'm

so grateful for the Free Press I'm so

grateful I'm like yeah and we're talking

it's great I'm like where do your kids

go to school and then and then they name

a place that's like the center of the

Mind virus and I'm like why would you do

that well that Al Alca was all filled up

yeah they reach their capacities up

right so to me it's sort of the

beginning of wisdom begins with that and

with the confidence that Prestige and

honor

is not something that is granted to you

by institutions that have allowed

themselves to be corrupted by morally

bankrupt people you you and your values

they're lucky to have you right that's

what I think like the fundamental

posture needs to change let's um talk

about the new stuff we're all building

the go direct movement all these new

brands you're one of them we're one of

them I suppose are we going to talk

about founder mode and are you guys

going to explain to me what that is I

mean cocaine I no in your no bar it's

cocaine really yeah founder Mode's

cocaine yeah it's good we have actually

the good I've never done founder mode I

can only guess but no my guy's got the

best founder modes I put some in your

green room thank you so much yeah yeah

um if you need more let me know um so I

want to I think I've been doing founder

mode if founder mode means like working

till you collapse every night for three

no no that just means being committed

and trying to build a business yeah

we're talking about cocaine founder mode

being a

deal it's back um yeah but let's

seriously talk about

um it's so funny back baby it's back woo

it's going to be a great show um so I

want to talk to you about uh the new

stuff that's being built um obviously

you have your subscription based

business doing wonderfully we've got the

information we've got all in um and then

you have you know everybody who got

kicked off of um you know broadcast

television um or what you know for

whatever reasons they left Don Lemon

Megan Kelly uh what's that Catherine

harage yeah it's fantastic yeah so tons

of long tail there but um this group is

also susceptible to the same things as

you pointed out and and perhaps in some

ways more susceptible because they've

got a less subscriber base less brand so

Fox News is going to be fine New York

Times is going to be fine but as we saw

this past week uh the Russians put $10

million into a little slush fund and

then gave it to start with no no I'm not

talking to saxs I'm talking to uh to to

Barry he's talking to sa through Barry

thank God I'm not managing these people

well no no I'm just curious what you're

I mean these are obviously you know as

the Russians would call them the usful

idiots but they're they didn't even know

they were getting millions of dollars

they didn't ask where it was coming from

um obviously you didn't take that money

we didn't get offered that money

unfortunately otherwise you would have

taken it yeah we would have sec we would

have secured that bag immediately free

money from the Russi

we're like the scene in The Matrix where

Neo's dodging the bullets in one nicks's

leg that's the Russian money cuz it was

flying everywhere and Jal was trying to

jump into the bullets and you know

trying to collect them and it's like

it's all we can do to just we wanted to

get that uh that sweet sweet money but

what was your your what's your take on

this cuz you had some strong feelings

when uh I think Tucker went um and did

his what you thought was propaganda for

Putin um and so let's talk about

you know how susceptible in your mind um

these voices are to being bought and

paid for apparently to me it's less

about allegedly being bought and paid

for I think what it is is there's a

really really understandable risk that

once you sort of eject yourself from the

Matrix or whatever the right metaphor is

stop taking the blue the blue pale T

it's like once you see one lie all of a

sudden the it comes a world of lies and

what's to stop you sort of from falling

down the rabbit hole and I'll give you

an example there's certain people I

don't want to name them who like I so

admired and I felt like they were really

precient on stand on standing up against

sort of the neo-racism from the left

let's say and then all of a sudden I

turn around and they're basically

talking about how Bill Gates is like

putting 5G chips in our brain and I

think to myself how did that happen and

I think the way that it happened is an

really understandable human impulse

which is these people lied to me about

this thing therefore everything they say

is untrue or these PE or or the Overton

window has been narrowed so so tightly

that I'm just going to fling it open to

I don't know someone that says that

Churchill is a villain and the Nazis may

have had a point so that's what I think

is is actually

happening more broadly and I think the I

feel often times at the Free Press like

we're dancing on the edge of a knife

which is to say on one side you have

these institutions that have the poor

gatekeeping but at least it's I mean

they have gatekeeping they have fact

Checkers they have this whole system

right that's corrupt but at least it was

supposed to work at one point and then

you have kind of the Wild West world and

the wild west world has everything and

so you know can see Alex Jones right

alongside you know a a fantastic

journalist like Megan Kelly and how are

you supposed to know who is who right

and so that's the challenge I think of

the new Wild West world and what we're

desperately trying to do at the Free

Press is to be the bridge and what I

mean by that is to marry the standards

that you would once expect from a place

like the Washington Post or the New York

Times in other words everything is

rigorously fact checked when we get

something wrong we publicly correct it

like all of those old rules but Maring

them to the sort of political freedom of

the new world can you take us into an

instance where a contributor because you

have a lot of freelance contributors or

just you know important people will want

to publish now in the Free Press which I

think is a really good sign for you um

that you're doing something meaningful

um that they submit something and you're

like okay this is not actually reporting

this is your opinion on a

conspiracy and we need to maybe get some

facts in here to boister this opinion of

yours because I mean these dopes

accepted $100,000 who never asked it so

then people are going to take their

opinion on Ukraine and and look at that

as factual when they don't even question

who gave them $100,000 an episode I mean

you the these people are obviously

idiots SLC corrupt what do you think I

wish I had read more about this

particular story well it's infuriating

because if somebody were to drop

$100,000 on you to publish the Free

Press on another website you'd say

where's the money coming from correct

yeah I mean why are we getting free

money yeah we don't get free money

probably because I'm too stupid to get

free money but no no it's the opposite

you're too smart so they wouldn't offer

it maybe I mean I the the scenario

you're asking me to go into that happens

every single day in other words we're in

a really excellent position where we

turn down the majority of things that

are submitted to us and and I think the

thing that's really heartening is what

are readers reward is the very thing

that we were founded to get in other

words when I left the New York Times the

Free Press Barry weiss subs.com and it

began as a reactionary product honestly

like now it's transformed itself but it

began as me being so pissed that they

were ignoring and lying about so much

and those were the stories that I ran

sort of headlong into mostly

institutional capture in the areas of

law and medicine and education but just

to choose an example a few hours ago we

you know we sent Leon Woodhouse an

amazing reporter I saw as everyone here

did that the Third Precinct in

Minneapolis during the BLM protest and

rioting burned to the ground and the

cops abandoned that station and I

wondered what do the cops in the third

precinct what do the small business

owners there what do they think about

Tim Walls now that is a natural story

that in a normal time the New York Times

would report on immediately when he was

chosen but they didn't and so we sent

Lon and he interviewed two dozen police

officers and small business owners and

that is the kind of thing that our

readers want they want new information

soberly presented and brilliantly

written they want really high quality

things and to me that's one of the

things about building the business has

been the most heartening David saaks has

not said a

word well let me uh found let me I can

actually let me let me uh agree with a

few things you said um so first of all I

agree with you that the mainstream media

is not just biased it's just like all

propaganda all the time and the turning

point for me in realizing this was Co I

think before covid I realized that yeah

you know the media the MRE media is

largely consists of liberals so they're

going to have a liberal bias what we saw

during covid was that they were even

lying about science right it wasn't just

politics it's like everything you know

we were told that um the pandemic was a

pandemic of the unvaccinated even though

even if you got the what they were

calling the vaccine it didn't actually

stop the spread you go on and on that

you know we had to basically do social

distancing except when the Riots of 2020

happened then you're allowed to go

outside and actually participate because

it's a social justice cause so therefore

the health changes I mean it was like on

and on church but you can go to a

protest right right so no surfing so it

was like for me it became so obvious

that uh that the media is just again it

goes Way Beyond bias you know it's like

it's just all wrong now at the same time

I think that

you do raise a good point which is once

you're outside the world of The Prestige

media yeah you are kind of on your own

you're on you're on Independent

platforms I use x to try and figure out

you know who I should listen to and the

way I do it is I compare who said what

compared to what actually happened so

like who ended up being right about the

issues and then I will follow them more

and I will def follow the people who are

wrong it's really simple for example on

the issue of Ukraine the number one

quoted Source in the mainstream media is

a think tank called The Institute for

the study of War it's basically a a

neocon funded Think Tank who are the

relatives of Victoria new newand who is

the architect of our policy in Ukraine

everything they've written over the past

two and a half years about Ukraine has

been proven wrong they said that the

summer counter offensive last summer was

going to be a giant Victory it ended up

being a disaster sorry these are her

relatives yourself relatives and the the

mainstream media the New York Times so

on quotes

isw it's if you go look at the the

citations it is the single most sighted

Authority by the mainstream media and

they are consistently wrong who is right

about the Sumer counter offensive well I

was for

example while we're handing out credit

and I and I and I and I certainly didn't

need to be paid by the Russians I just

figured out what the truth was okay jcal

uh so you know you you you bring up you

bring up these you know these um stories

about Russian influence or whatever the

real influence operation in this country

is by the mainstream media they're the

ones who are spreading disinformation

about the war in Ukraine and so many

other issues on a scale that dwarfs what

any of these like handful of podcasters

that most people have never heard of uh

can ever hope to accomplish so in any

event I agree with you when's the

foreign policy panel at this conference

and can I join it well yeah we're going

to do shimer and s m shimer and saxs on

saxs on M shimer well look I would um

well we're having yeah John Mir shimer

and Jeffrey Sachs are speaking tomorrow

so they're doing a Tay T but yeah if you

want to stick around and we could have

maybe you and John we can work that I

have a I have a question you got you've

got some time right now right now you me

no no go go on last um last year this

would be like a many hours conversation

well last year one of the most popular

things that come out of this was a talk

about regulatory capture by Bill Gurley

and you mentioned that the first thing

Bill

Gurley that's cheering for Bill and not

regulatory capture cheering for bill um

he's great but you said that when you

left the times you threw yourself sort

of like head first into the into the

regulatory capture of the law and

medicine and whatnot uh what did you

learn I would say regulatory capture I

would say ideological capture

ideological capture okay so what did you

learn

I mean we've published so much on this

but but basically the way in which

institutions intended for one purpose

have come to serve another another one

or another God and you know in the case

of medicine which I would think would be

maybe the most alarming in the law um

not actually intending I mean the

purpose of medicine is to do no harm and

yet all of a sudden in many hospitals

and and medical schools across the

country people were being told to do

something very different to meet out

care based on race to you know to

shuffle young teenage girls especially

toward

irreversible changes in their bodies and

and things of that nature so a lot of it

comes back to the fundamental theme we

we've been sort of been circling in this

conversation which is that ideological

change that's happened um and I think

just to go back to where where we began

this conversation it's like where did

all this come from I I don't think it's

possible to understand these changes and

like the Rebel Alliance maybe that's

risen up against it without talking

about technology and and the reality

that we like 20 years ago 30 years ago I

would have just left the New York Times

and and just maybe opened a diner done

done something completely different this

this would not have been available to me

and it's kind of

unbelievable what's what's been made

Poss I by technology I mean I'm not

someone who I've never managed a person

in my life I never raised money in my

life I never imagin I'd be an

entrepreneur I can barely log into

substack and now I have a company with

50 full-time employees it's unbelievable

that's amazing yeah congratulations

that's founder mode and I that's the

real founder mode and and and I I would

just add that you know what the truth is

on any particular issue is not always

obvious it's a process to figure it out

and so we have to have these

alternatives in order to debate the

issues and then arrive at the truth and

you again compare what people said to

what actually happens and you try to

figure out who you can trust and the

good news is that today we have these

Alternatives we have alternative media

of which you're a major part all in PO

is a major part and I think these

alternatives are building in reaction to

basically the corruption of the

mainstream media which I think you're

spot on about I think that the the

challenge at least I'll say for the Free

Press is there are a lot of people out

there who their goal and they're doing

it beautifully is to make a lot of money

really quickly and to be very

influential as oneman bands what we are

trying to do is something much more

long-term we are trying in an age where

no one trusts institutions anymore and

they only trust individuals and

influencers to stealthily build an

institution and what that requires is a

kind of discipline to give up and we do

a lot of things that would really stuff

our pockets in the short term not the

Russians but other things um for the

sake of building what is to us the thing

of the most value which is trust with

the audience and they I believe see us

doing that and see us publishing things

that might enrage them that they might

disagree with that might provoke them

and we think that that's just a part of

that that is fundamental to our mission

it's great ladies and gentlemen Harry

Weiss thank you

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