Author: The Free Press

For several months, the journalist Katie Herzog has been talking to some of the country's top doctors and professors—not about COVID, or vaccines—but about a new, creeping orthodoxy that’s taken over the hospitals and medical schools where they work. Those doctors say that whole areas of research are off-limits. They say that top physicians are treating patients based on their race. That professors are apologizing for saying ‘male’ and ‘female’ and that students are policing teachers. And in more than a few alarming instances, politics has come before patients. As one doctor put it: “Wokeness feels like an existential threat."Today, Katie joins us to discuss the ideological purge happening within American medicine, where the stakes could not be higher. 

If you haven't read her newsmaking stories, published in our newsletter, we highly recommend checking them out

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Amy Cooper was not the internet’s first “Karen” — the pejorative used for a demanding, entitled white woman. But as the Central Park dog walker who went viral for calling the police on a black birdwatcher last year, she quickly became the paragon of the archetype.

Within 24 hours, Amy Cooper had been doxxed, fired from her job, and surrendered her dog. She wound up fleeing the country. She hasn’t spoken publicly since last summer. Until now. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Kmele Foster, friend of Honestly and co-host of The Fifth Column, we revisit the story of what happened in the park that day. We show what the media intentionally left out of the story. And we examine the cost of mob justice.

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Why are men the way they are? Are they naturally more aggressive? And is it fair for transwomen to compete in sports separated by sex? Is it possible to overcome our animal instincts?

And why has it gotten so hard to ask these questions out loud? To admit that there are any differences between men and women?

On today’s episode, a deep dive into these subjects and more with Carole Hooven, the author of “‘T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us." The book was named one of the WSJ’s ten best.

Carole is an evolutionary biologist and lecturer at Harvard, where she focuses on behavioral endocrinology and sex differences. Here, she explains the science of T, the misinformation about sex, and the importance of telling the truth, even if it makes you unpopular.

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Maud Maron is the picture of a passionate progressive. She was a Planned Parenthood escort; a research assistant for a Black Panther leader; a Bernie voter; a public school parent; and, most significantly, a public defender who worked for many years at Legal Aid.

But fellow progressives, including her colleagues at Legal Aid, now insist that Maud is racist, that she supports segregation, that she is, despite all appearances to the contrary, a modern version of Bull Connor.

How did this happen? Why is Maron being lied about so flagrantly? And why did she recently decide to sue Legal Aid, the institution to which she dedicated her career?

You've probably never heard of Maud Maron. But I think you will be shocked by her story -- and inspired by her decision to stand up to a tsunami of lies. 

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One year after her resignation from the New York Times, Bari sits down with author (and America's most famous Stoic) Ryan Holiday to talk about how the media broke and who is to blame for breaking it. Holiday knows about fake news: In his 2012 bestseller, “Trust Me, I'm Lying,” he explains how he manipulated the media on behalf of himself and his clients, including Tucker Max and Dov Charney of American Apparel. Holiday is also the author of "Conspiracy," the story of how billionaire Peter Thiel brought down the gossip site Gawker. We discuss the unintended consequences of Thiel's success, the economics of outrage, Stoicism, opening a bookstore during COVID, and much more.

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All of a sudden, the phrase "Critical Race Theory" seems like it's everywhere. If you are confused by the phrase, or wonder how everyone seems to have an opinion about it, you aren't alone. Despite what some in the mainstream media insist, you do not need a PhD or a law degree to understand this subject. Today, we clear up what it means. We explain why parents across the country are showing up at school board meetings to voice their opposition to it. And we host a debate between Chris Rufo and David French about what the government ought to do about it.

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A recent study from the American Medical Association found that one-third of men between the ages of 18 to 24 reported having no sex at all in the previous year — and that was before the COVID lockdowns. Meantime, the marriage rate and the birth rate are both at historic lows.

What’s at a historic high is online porn. In 2019, more than five billion hours of porn were watched on Pornhub alone. That’s 500 thousand years worth of time.

My guest today has been at the forefront of this change.

Meet Aella. She has been doing sex work online and in real life for the past decade and she’s now killing on a platform called OnlyFans, where she charges for her followers for her explicit content. It’s like Substack. Sort of. Whatever preconceptions you have about porn stars I assure you she will challenge them.

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For 14 years, Winston Marshall was the banjo player and lead guitarist of the massively successful band Mumford & Sons. Last week, following a viral incident over a tweet, he quit the band: "I could remain and continue to self-censor but it will erode my sense of integrity. Gnaw my conscience. I’ve already felt that beginning." On today's episode, Winston speaks exclusively with Bari about why he chose to walk away from the band he loved.

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For 26 years, the swash-buckling, pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily was a thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party. This week, after its offices were ransacked, its founder was jailed ,and five of its executives were arrested, it printed its very last edition. The paper's death marks the death of Hong Kong's free press.We hear from a dogged young reporter who takes us inside the newsroom to the last days of Apple Daily, and hear her explain why what is happening to her and her colleagues is not only a threat to them, but to us all.

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Why does every institution feel so broken? Why would newspapers sacrifice their credibility to suppress something like the lab leak theory? Why does it feel like small differences of opinion so quickly turn into hate? Martin Gurri saw it all coming. The CIA analyst predicted Trump, Brexit, WallStreetBets, BLM, the Yellow vests, and believes all of these movements are connected by a single force: THE INTERNET. The printing press transformed humanity in the 1400s, but Gurri argues that we are now living through a more radical transformation. One that is just beginning. Gurri's prescient book is recommended by our host more than any other. If you haven't read it, don't wait. 

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