UnHerd
Type of site
Commentary
Available inEnglish
Founded21 July 2017
Headquarters
London
,
UK
EditorSally Chatterton
URLunherd.com
Current statusActive
UnHerd at Old Queen Street, Westminster

UnHerd is a British news and opinion website founded in July 2017. It is funded by an endowment, and it promotes a "slow" approach to reporting.

Content

UnHerd was founded in 2017 by conservative British political activist Tim Montgomerie, who also acted as editor. Following Montgomerie's departure in September 2018,[1] journalist Sally Chatterton, who previously wrote for The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, took over as editor.[2][3] Freddie Sayers joined the magazine in 2019 as executive editor, having previously been editor-in-chief of YouGov and founder of the British news and current affairs website Politics Home. As of October 2022, the website lists 23 staff.[4]

Its columnists include Giles Fraser, Justin Webb, Carl Miller, Ed West, Tanya Gold, John Gray, James Bloodworth, Matthew Goodwin, Maurice Glasman, Julie Bindel, Meghan Murphy, Michael Tracey, Douglas Murray, Paul Embery, Kathleen Stock and Ian Birrell.[5]

In March 2020, UnHerd launched a YouTube channel named LockdownTV, taking its name from the lockdowns implemented around the same time period.[6] The channel posts interviews conducted by Sayers.[7]

The website initially existed without a paywall, as it is funded by an endowment from British investor Paul Marshall.[8][9][3] In 2017, New Statesman reported that the site intended to introduce paid services.[10] In May 2020, the site said that it intended to switch to a subscription model later that year.[9] As of November 2022, it offers readers a limited number of articles for free.

In January 2023, former Politico and The Atlantic writer Tom McTague was hired as UnHerd's political editor.[11]

Notable stories

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 February 2022 an UnHerd piece by Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman claimed her paper was allowing itself to be bullied over transgender issues.[13][14]

In July 2022, UnHerd reported that a Ukrainian government body set up to counter misinformation had compiled a list of politicians and intellectuals in multiple countries who they believed were promoting Russian propaganda.[15][16] The list included senator Rand Paul, former 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.[15]

Reception

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 UnHerd's promotion of slow journalism, saying "the idea UnHerd is offering a groundbreaking solution to information overload is faintly ludicrous."[10]

In 2020, Ian Burrell, writing in the i, noted that UnHerd pieces can run to 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."[9]

References

  1. ↑ Mayhew, Freddy (25 September 2018). "Former Times columnist Tim Montgomerie leaves Unherd news website he founded last year". Press Gazette. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  2. ↑ "Sally Chatterton, Editor". www.unherd.com. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  3. 1 2 Chakelian, Anoosh (30 January 2019). "The UnHerd Tortoise: are elite media start-ups just hype?". New Statesman. London. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  4. ↑ "About UnHerd". www.unherd.com. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  5. ↑ "Writers". www.unherd.com. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  6. ↑ "LockdownTV". UnHerd. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  7. ↑ Leithart, Peter J. (16 September 2022). "Consensus by Censorship". First Things.
  8. ↑ Nelson, Fraser (21 July 2017). "Welcome to the herd, UnHerd". The Spectator. London. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  9. 1 2 3 Burrell, Ian (18 May 2020). "News websites are seeing record traffic, so public trust is higher than it seems". The i. London.
  10. 1 2 Jackson, Jasper (21 July 2017). "UnHerd's rejection of the new isn't as groundbreaking as it seems to think". New Statesman. London. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  11. ↑ UnHerd [@unherd] (13 January 2023). "We are delighted to announce that the brilliant @tommctague (ex-Atlantic, Politico) will be joining UnHerd as our new Political Editor, starting in a week!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  12. ↑ Kelly, Jemima (18 February 2021). "How 'fact-checking' can be used as censorship". Financial Times. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  13. ↑ Fanshawe, Simon (22 February 2022). "New York Times is peddling its own alternative facts over JK Rowling". New Statesman. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  14. ↑ Kanter, Jake (21 February 2022). "Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman says left-wing media bows down to trans bullies". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  15. 1 2 Carbonaro, Giulia (26 July 2022). "Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul Placed on List of Russian Propagandists by Ukraine". Newsweek. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  16. ↑ "'Russian propaganda promoters list': NSAB Chairman on Ukraine list, he says claim preposterous". The Indian Express. 1 August 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  17. ↑ McRedmond, Finn (25 July 2022). "Ukraine Government issues blacklist of 'Russian propagandists'". UnHerd. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  18. ↑ Mitra, Devirupa (26 July 2022). "Ukraine Accuses 3 Indians, Including Former NSAB Head, of 'Promoting Russian Propaganda'". The Wire. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  19. ↑ Childs, Simon (25 July 2017). "The UnHerd and the Whining of the Perfectly-Well-Represented". Vice. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
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