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The Free Press Is A New Media Company Founded By Bari Weiss And Built On The Ideals That Once Were The Bedrock Of Great Journalism: Honesty, Doggedness, And Fierce Independence

With their oh-so-controversial opinions, We Want Them Infected (WWTI) doctors became the darlings of the “heterodox” media, where they blended their medical credentials and political beliefs. Though these outlets claim to value diversity of viewpoints and independent thought, they all published the same doctors who said the same things, while refusing to platform anyone who might correct their misinformation.  

The Free Press advises its readers to “think for yourself” and describes itself by saying:

The Free Press is a new media company founded by Bari Weiss and built on the ideals that once were the bedrock of great journalism: honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence. We publish investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is—with the quality once expected from the legacy press, but the fearlessness of the new.

In reality, the Free Press published “provocative commentary” from misinformation doctors and thus prevented its readers from thinking at all. It produced content like this:

That last article spread fake statistics, claiming that polio, which killed zero American children in my entire life, was dangerous for children while COVID was not. This is what Ms. Weiss called “the world as it actually is.” 

When The Herd Takes Off In One Direction, What Do You Do? Unherd Is For People Who Dare To Think For Themselves.

UnHerd, run by British journalist Freddie Sayers, is another publication that encourages people to “think for themselves”. Their motto is: 

When the herd takes off in one direction, what do you do? UnHerd is for people who dare to think for themselves.

Apparently, if you disagreed with the mass infection of unvaccinated youth to reach herd immunity, you were incapable of thinking for yourself. However, by platforming WWTI doctors, UnHerd prevented its audience from thinking at all. Here are some examples:

That last article said:

The development of immunity through natural infection is a common feature of many pathogens, and it is reasonable to assume that Covid-19 does not have any tricks up its sleeve to prevent this from happening.

Persuasion: Determined To Defend Free Speech And Free Inquiry Against All Its Enemies

Persuasion, run by former Atlantic journalist Yasha Mounk, says it is “determined to defend free speech and free inquiry against all its enemies.” In reality, it inhibited free inquiry by promoting several WWTI doctors. In July 2021, it published an interview with “three public health professionals” titled What We Got Wrong (and Right) About COVID-19. It contained familiar poor predictions and pro-infection rhetoric:

  • Dr. Monica Gandhi:I think that the public health emergency is over. And what that means is that hospitals are in no way overwhelmed… Children under 14 years old are threefold less likely to get the virus than adults. If they get exposed, they are one-half as likely as adults to spread it…When there are low case rates in your community, the risk of your unvaccinated child getting COVID-19 is very low, too. Population immunity means children are so much less likely to be exposed to the virus…There’s a principle in infectious disease that if you avoid all infections, what’s called your microbiome—your degree of diversity of how you respond to other pathogens—is decreased, and it’s actually very important to have some exposure to mild pathogens. I personally want to get some colds. So I won’t be wearing a mask unless someone makes me.
  • Dr. Stefan Baral: I agree that it is important, particularly youth with their developing immune systems, to be exposed to different pathogens when they’re young and healthy. It’s amazing that this idea has become controversial, but it has. I similarly am not going to wear a mask unless somebody forces me.
  • Dr. Vinay Prasad: I think the worst is over…I hate to say it, but the moment Donald Trump said he was for schools reopening, I think a lot of people turned their brains off, and they opposed it totally to thwart him. And I think that is one of the worst things that has happened.

The Delta variant peaked the next month leading to record death in several states and hospitalizing more children than ever before. The virus also forced schools to close, not just in Democratic bastions but also in Kentucky, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and West Virginia. According to Dr. Prasad, schools only closed because liberals turned off their brains to “thwart” Trump.

Mr. Mounk wasn’t bothered by the misinformation he had previously presented to his readers, and rather than revisit these doctors’ failed predictions, he published an interview in 2024 titled Vinay Prasad on What Went Wrong With COVID, which quoted him as saying: 

Of course, in the United States, we used the power of the police state to enforce lockdowns. And that I think was a bad policy decision that was not in line with prior public health guidance. It was learned from a totalitarian regime.

At least some of the commentators were able to think for themselves, with one person saying:

I can’t understand why, when Prasad repeatedly said there was no justification to close schools because children were not endangered by the virus, Yascha did not point out the obvious fact that schools don’t only have children; they have many adults: teachers, administrators, and other staff. This leads me to the conclusion that this is a fundamentally unserious conversation.

Reason:  Free Minds and Free Markets

Reason Magazine is a libertarian magazine whose motto is “Free Minds and Free Markets.”  However, Reason inhibited free thinking by publishing misinformation from WWTI doctors. Some examples include:

“Trust is justified based on how an organization or system performs,” Dr. Prasad said in that last interview. “And the truth is, the entire public health apparatus, failed.”

Tablet:  A Jewish Magazine About The World

Table Magazine describes itself as “a Jewish magazine about the world.”  In reality, it misinformed its readers about the world. Some examples include:

Even though COVID killed and hospitalized more American children than all other vaccine-preventable diseases combined, that last article said: 

With its unscientific push to vaccinate all infants and toddlers against COVID, the agency will harm vaccine uptake for more significant diseases

None of these outlets has ever looked back and reflected on how these articles aged. This is how the “heterodox” press, which claims to be about “free thinking” and “diversity of viewpoints”, promoted groupthink and conformity amongst its audience while misinforming them about basic facts and preventing them from thinking for themselves. They have my permission to publish this article if they want to prove me wrong.

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  • Dr. Jonathan Howard is a neurologist and psychiatrist who has been interested in vaccines since long before COVID-19. He is the author of "We Want Them Infected: How the failed quest for herd immunity led doctors to embrace the anti-vaccine movement and blinded Americans to the threat of COVID."

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Posted by Jonathan Howard

Dr. Jonathan Howard is a neurologist and psychiatrist who has been interested in vaccines since long before COVID-19. He is the author of "We Want Them Infected: How the failed quest for herd immunity led doctors to embrace the anti-vaccine movement and blinded Americans to the threat of COVID."

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