Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
From the Free Press, this is Honestly, and I'm Barry Weiss. The very first episode of this show aired in May 2021. It wasn't with a celebrity or a statesman. It was with a man named Majdi Wadi, a Palestinian-American business owner based in Minneapolis, whose livelihood had been decimated because his daughter had tweeted some terrible things as a teenager.
I remember from that conversation, Majdi told me, this is not America. I have the right to say what I believe and what I don't believe, and I have the right to agree or disagree with you. In America, we judge people as individuals. It was exactly the kind of story that has animated this show and the free press from the very beginning.
Chapter 2: How has Honestly evolved since its first episode?
A story that complicated what had been a two-dimensional headline and that served to remind us of our most basic values, values that over the past few years, too many seem to have forgotten. Since that conversation with Majdi Wadi, we have made nearly 400 episodes of Honestly. We've covered everything from big ideas to difficult debates, from politics and culture to technology, religion, and war.
We've been with you through moments of global crisis, elections, and domestic upheaval. And we've tried to bring you serious thinking, real disagreement, and voices that you just weren't hearing anywhere else. If I sound mushy right now, it's because I love making this show and I'm not done making it.
But as you may have heard, if you have an internet connection, I've also taken on a new role and that's as editor-in-chief of CBS News. It's a huge responsibility and it's an extraordinary opportunity to bring the values that drive this show and that drive the free press into a much bigger arena. And that is the mission of journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual.
Journalism that reports on the world as it actually is, that respects the audience enough to tell them the truth plainly, wherever it leads. It's journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices so that people can contend with the best arguments on all sides of a debate.
It's a mission that puts journalism that rushes toward the most interesting and important stories, no matter what, at the center of everything we do. In a sentence, my job is to take the values and the vision that you have supported and stood behind, hear it honestly, and bring it to CBS News. So here's the news. Honestly is taking a little bit of a pause.
I know it's hard to hear that. It's definitely hard for me to do that because I love doing this show. But I think and I hope that you'll understand why. Don't worry, it's not forever. We'll be back in just a few short months. And in the meantime, the free press is expanding.
It's exploding. We have a growing slate of podcasts and shows that illuminate our world in surprising and provocative ways. These shows will make you smarter, wiser, and dare I say, happier too. In case you're not listening yet, those are Conversations with Coleman. Of course, that is Coleman Hughes. Old School with Shiloh Brooks. Breaking History with Eli Lake.
And Free Press Investigates, which looks into niche stories and investigations that you won't find anywhere else. And of course, and this is, I think, one of the most exciting things that we do, we do live streams for Free Press subscribers only that are often directly off the news. When Trump sees Maduro, we were right on it hours later.
You don't need to wait for the latest drop in a podcast feed. Come right to the Free Press' website. And there's so much more going on at The Free Press. We have new columnists like Abigail Schreier, Arthur Brooks, Neil Ferguson, Patrick McGee, Rod Dreher, and so many others. I promise you, these are the smartest people out there, and they will change the way you think and understand the world.
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