| UnHerd | |
| Foundation: | 21 July 2017 |
| Editor: | Freddie Sayers (Editor-in-Chief & CEO) |
| Location City: | London |
| Location Country: | UK |
| Owner: | Sir Paul Marshall |
| Url: | unherd.com |
| Website Type: | Commentary |
| Language: | English |
| Current Status: | Active |
UnHerd is a British news and opinion website founded in July 2017, which describes itself as a platform for slow journalism.
UnHerd was founded in 2017 by Sir Paul Marshall as owner and publisher, and conservative British political activist Tim Montgomerie as editor.[1] [2]
The website initially existed without a paywall, as it is funded by an endowment from Marshall.[3] In 2017, New Statesman reported that the site intended to introduce paid services.[4] In May 2020, the site said that it intended to switch to a subscription model later that year., it offers readers a limited number of articles for free.[5]
Following Montgomerie's departure in September 2018,[6] journalist Sally Chatterton, who previously wrote for The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, took over as editor.[7] [8]
Freddie Sayers joined the magazine in 2019 as executive editor, having previously been editor-in-chief of YouGov and co-founder of the British news and current affairs website Politics Home.[9]
In November 2022, UnHerd opened a private members' club and restaurant in Westminster, named the Old Queen Street Cafe. Talks and debates at the club are broadcast on UnHerds YouTube channel.
UnHerds columnists include Giles Fraser, Aris Roussinos, Kat Rosenfield, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, David Patrikarakos, Terry Eagleton, Bret Easton Ellis, Mary Gaitskill, Lionel Shriver, Matthew Crawford, Helen Thompson, Freddie deBoer, Tanya Gold, Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock.[10]
In January 2023, former Politico and The Atlantic writer Tom McTague was hired as UnHerds political editor.[11]
In 2021, an UnHerd piece criticising the World Health Organization (WHO) for dismissing the COVID-19 lab leak theory in its investigation was marked by Facebook with a "false information" tag; Facebook apologised after UnHerd objected. In an opinion piece about the incident, Financial Times columnist Jemma Kelly noted that three days later the White House expressed "deep concerns" about the WHO investigation.[12]
In a February 2022 UnHerd piece, Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman wrote that her paper was allowing itself to be bullied over transgender issues.[13] [14]
In July 2022, UnHerd reported that the Ukrainian government's Center for Countering Disinformation had compiled a list of politicians and intellectuals in multiple countries whom they believed were promoting Russian propaganda.[15] [16] The list included US senator Rand Paul, former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, military analyst Edward Luttwak, political scientist John Mearsheimer, and journalist Glenn Greenwald, as well as the former chair of the Indian National Security Advisory Board.[17] [18] The UnHerd report included responses from Luttwak, Mearsheimer, and Greenwald.
When the site was launched in July 2017, Simon Childs in Vice was critical of the underlying premise, saying: "The social media news cycle can be a jading stream of ill-informed narcissists, but it's refreshing to be reminded that at least it offers a more diverse outlook than Tim Montgomerie funded by an oligarch publishing the kind of people who are generally 'unheard' because people edge away from them at parties."[19] Jasper Jackson writing for the New Statesman was also sceptical of UnHerds promotion of slow journalism, saying "the idea UnHerd is offering a groundbreaking solution to information overload is faintly ludicrous."[4]
In 2020, Ian Burrell, writing in the i, noted that UnHerd pieces can be 2,000 words in length, presenting "nuance and context" in science articles and pursuing an "approach to digital journalism [that] is counter to the notion that only extreme views can generate traffic"; he compared the website to Tortoise Media, another "slower-paced news experiment that defies the catch-all notion of the media."[20]