cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/37491017
Ryan Grim
Oct 12, 2025David Ellison, heir to the fortune of his father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is said to have been attracted to Weiss and The Free Press specifically for the outlet’s pro-Israel stance. Dylan Byers, who broke news of the FP sale for Puck, reported that Ellison was “smitten by Bari’s unwavering support of Israel and preoccupation with the rise of antisemitism—issues that are as near and dear to David’s father, Larry, as they are to Paramount’s outgoing owner.”
Facing blowback for minimizing the famine in Gaza, The Free Press responded by saying that critics of the article, including Drop Site, are “journalists who oppose actual journalism.”
Weiss added: “You’ll notice one important aspect about the uproar: No one is disputing the facts in our piece.”
Well, we are. The Free Press claims in its investigation to have looked at the cases of 12 Palestinian’s photographs, as well as the child, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyouba Al-Mutawaq who appeared prominently in a New York Times article—and whose story they questioned in a previous Free Press article. Yet instead of reporting on the 12 Palestinians they claimed to have looked into, the article in fact only addresses nine, or arguably ten, an inexplicable discrepancy, and doesn’t provide original reporting on any of the cases.
John Oliver just did a show where this was a key talking point, as well.
