Bari Weiss, Founder of The Free Press, Is Building a New Media Empire

Media|Bari Weiss Knows Exactly What She’s Doing

Bari Weiss has long been blessed with two superpowers, those close to her say: She knows how to make useful enemies, and she knows how to make useful friends.

As the founder, public face and heat-seeking curator of The Free Press, a new media company with ambitions to overtake the old media, Ms. Weiss, 40, has identified a mélange of reliable foils: the illiberal left; diversity, equity and inclusion programs; opponents of Israel; The New York Times, where Ms. Weiss worked until 2020.

For her sins against groupthink, Ms. Weiss has suggested, she faced eviction from the media “cool kids’ table,” without regret.

“I don’t need to be with the beautiful people,” she said at a conference in San Diego recently, hosted by an asset management executive who describes himself as her devoted groupie. “I’m OK being with the nerds.”

In fact, luminaries from both camps appear to enjoy her company.

With her news and opinion site (characteristic headlines: “Camping Out at Columbia’s Communist Coachella,” “The Secret Service Failed. What’s That Have to Do With DEI?”), a popular podcast (“Honestly with Bari Weiss”) and a lucrative turn on the speechmaking circuit, Ms. Weiss has amassed high status in what might be considered the no-tribes tribe of American power.

She has created, or at least created space at, a cool kids’ table all her own, positioning herself as a teller of dangerous truths while becoming a kind of brand ambassador for the views and passions of her audience, which often seem to track neatly with her own: that elite universities have lost the plot; that legacy outlets have lost their minds; that Ms. Weiss knows the way forward.