 | |
Type of site | Commentary |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 21 July 2017 |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
| Owner | Paul Marshall |
| Editor | Freddie Sayers (Editor-in-Chief & CEO) |
| URL | unherd |
| Current status | Active |
UnHerd is a British news and opinion website founded in 2017 by conservative commentatorTim Montgomerie and hedge fund managerPaul Marshall. It describes itself as a platform forslow journalism which draws from bothleft-wing andright-wing perspectives,[1][2] while others characterize it asconservative and right-wing.[2][3][4]
UnHerd was founded in 2017 by the hedge fund managerPaul Marshall as its owner and publisher and conservative British political activistTim Montgomerie as its editor.[5][6][2][7]
The website initially existed without apaywall, as it is funded by an endowment from Marshall.[8][9][10] In 2017,New Statesman reported that the site intended to introduce paid services.[11] In May 2020, the site said that it intended to switch to a subscription model later that year.[9] As of October 2022[update], it offers readers a limited number of articles free of charge.[12]
Following Montgomerie's departure in September 2018,[13] journalist Sally Chatterton, who previously wrote forThe Daily Telegraph andThe Independent, took over as editor.[14][10]
Freddie Sayers joined the magazine in 2019 as executive editor, having previously been editor-in-chief ofYouGov and co-founder of the British news and current affairs websitePolitics Home.[15]
In November 2022,UnHerd opened a private members' club and restaurant inWestminster, named the Old Queen Street Cafe. Talks and debates at the club are broadcast onUnHerd's YouTube channel.[2]
UnHerd's columnists includeGiles 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 andKathleen Stock.[16] UnHerd describes its contributors as being both left-wing and right-wing writers.[2] According to Samuel Earle writing forthe Guardian, "beneath UnHerd's claims to nonpartisanship lie Conservative-friendly foundations and a range of rightwing interests, for which the site's 'heterodox' range of writers appear to offer convenient cover."[2]
In 2018, thePress Gazette described the website as organised by seven themes: capitalism, flyover country, technology, news and media, religion, global affairs and groupthink.[13]
In a February 2022UnHerd piece,Guardian journalistHadley Freeman wrote that her paper was allowing itself to be bullied over transgender issues.[17][18]
In July 2022,UnHerd reported that the Ukrainian government'sCenter for Countering Disinformation had compiled a list of politicians and intellectuals in multiple countries who they believed were promoting Russian propaganda.[19][20] The list included US senatorRand Paul, former US congresswomanTulsi Gabbard, military analystEdward Luttwak, political scientistJohn Mearsheimer, and journalistGlenn Greenwald, as well as the former chair of the IndianNational Security Advisory Board.[21][22] TheUnHerd report included responses from Luttwak, Mearsheimer, and Greenwald.[19]
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Samuel Earle, writing inThe Guardian, described UnHerd in 2023 as "drifting away from explicit concern for theConservative Party and the future of capitalism, and towards a focus onculture war topics:lockdowns,wokeness,cancel culture and thetrans rights movement, as well as more general journalistic fare."[2] Earle also argued that "On issues such as the climate crisis, UnHerd invariably calls for calm and scepticism. But when it comes to trans issues, the alarm seemingly cannot be raised too often or too loudly.[2] An article inMorning Star claims that "the website is keen to knock the left and promote a variety of right-wing bugbears".[4]The Conversation described the site's editorial line as "generally right-of-centre", but "not consistently pro-Conservative [Party]".[3]
In January 2023, formerPolitico andThe Atlantic writerTom McTague was hired asUnHerd's political editor.[23]
When the site was launched in July 2017, Simon Childs inVice 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."[24] Jasper Jackson writing for theNew Statesman was also sceptical ofUnHerd's promotion ofslow journalism, saying "the ideaUnHerd is offering a groundbreaking solution to information overload is faintly ludicrous."[11]
In 2020, Ian Burrell, writing in thei, noted thatUnHerd 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 toTortoise Media, another "slower-paced news experiment that defies the catch-all notion of the media."[9]
In 2021, anUnHerd piece criticising theWorld Health Organization (WHO) for dismissing theCOVID-19 lab leak theory in its investigation was marked by Facebook with a "false information" tag; Facebook apologised afterUnHerd objected. In an opinion piece about the incident,Financial Times columnist Jemima Kelly noted that three days later theWhite House expressed "deep concerns" about the WHO investigation.[25]
In April 2024, the UK-basedGlobal Disinformation Index placedUnHerd on its Dynamic Exclusion List, which is used by advertisers to identify undesirable websites for brands to appear on. This happened afterUnHerd published three articles considered "anti-trans narratives". Sayers saidUnHerd consequently could only achieve about 5% of expected advertising earnings.[26]
