THE 'LITTLE' BUT LIT NEW YORK NEWS WEBSITE THAT COULD, WOULD AND DID.

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The Free Lance kicked down the elite media's door and broke into New York's news reporting club last January. That's when I first promised independent and nonpartisan news that lets readers draw their own conclusions from reported facts. No slavish adherence to ideological orthodoxy either. No preaching, just facts. That's The Free Lance code.

VICTORY LAP

Demonstrating The Free Lance's independence and fearlessness, as well as the elite media’s hypocrisy, its first major report exposed the Pimp in the Newsroom, Craig Newmark. Instead of begging money from him like many universities and mainstream news organizations have, The Free Lance revealed the sex crimes he built his media empire on. Crimes that helped make him and his company billions of dollars.

Newmark's response? To run and cut funding to his favorite "pet" news projects. 

Maybe the billionaire was restless and ready for a change anyway. Or maybe The Free Lance’s reporting drove the Digital Age pimp from the newsroom.

With just $835 in total donations, The Free Lance also drove the local news cycle with exclusive and original reporting like this that was re-reported by New York's other news outlets several times. Sometimes it was credited. Sometimes it wasn't. Once or twice it was just stolen.

In addition to reporting, Free Lance editorials helped convince New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign Clean Slate legislation into law. The new law automatically seals criminal records if offenders stay out of trouble for a specified period of time: 8 years for felonies, 3 for misdemeanors. Clean Slate brings 2.3 million New Yorkers back into the workforce—effectively giving each of every and one of them a chance at a starting a new life.

Among New York's news media, The Free Lance alone editorialized in favor of the reform.

TOP 10 READER FAVORITES

Here's The Free Lance's top 10 reports from 2023, based on the number of reads, according to data compiled by the website’s host, Squarespace.

10. NYPD BEGINS BLOCKING PRESS AND PUBLIC FROM LISTENING TO ITS RADIO BROADCASTS, July 11, 539 reads

The Free Lance was visited 35,031 times between Jan. 30 and Dec. 30. 24,310 visits were direct, not linked through a social media platform. A full 3/4 of those visits were made with a mobile or so-called "Smartphone." Most of the rest were made with a desktop. Tablets (prisoners?) were responsible for 426 visits. This report was duplicated without credit by news groups, and led to a City Council hearing.

9. CUOMO ACCUSERS FIGHT EFFORT BY FORMER GOVERNOR TO CLEAR HIS NAME, Aug. 23, 572 reads

One of the ways The Free Lance distinguished itself in 2023 was its close coverage of the controversy still surrounding New York's former Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Instead of parroting allegations against him, as most media has done, The Free Lance investigated their substance—or potential lack of substance. Politically-incorrect maybe but essential to full and fair news reporting.

8. TROOPER’S LAWSUIT AGAINST CUOMO FACES TOUGH FIGHT; 1 OF ONLY 2 FILED AGAINST HIM, Aug. 20, 605 reads

Another way The Free Lance distinguished itself was in its coverage of law enforcement. Three words describe that coverage: penetrative, insightful and fair. It does not celebrate police, like right-wing media generally does; nor does it demonize them, like woke media does. It draws a line straight down the middle—as The Free Lance always has. 

7. FOX NEWS' FAVORITE POLICE EXPERT IS SELF-PROCLAIMED 'KING OF BULLSHIT', June 5, 848 reads

Consistent with its pledge to deliver independent and nonpartisan news, The Free Lance's coverage of polarizing events sometimes focused on the propaganda surrounding them instead of the events themselves. As this profile of a “Copagandist" exemplifies, The Free Lance established itself as a go-to source for propaganda analysis.

6. UPDATED: STEVEN SPIELBERG, ANDRE 3000, PUFFY, BLOOMBERG LP, RIKERS GUARDS SUED AS SPECIAL SEX SUIT LAW ENDS, Nov. 11, 1,113 reads

The Free Lance covered sexual violence long before the Me Too movement. When disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was arrested for rape, The Free Lance was there photographing him and giving a radio report for WNYC that was re-broadcast nationally by NPR. This report on a special law for victims of sexual assault continued that long public service tradition.

5. THE #METOO PLOT TO BRING DOWN NY GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, Aug. 13, 1,299 reads

Covering any movement does not mean cheerleading it. The Free Lance covered all of the social-media powered social-justice movements of the 2010s, beginning with Occupy Wall Street. The Free Lance knows movements. Knowing a movement means understanding it, inside and out. Knowing it means identifying leaders, mission and method.

4. 'I BROKE A MAN DOWN': NYPD COP WHO SODOMIZED ABNER LOUIMA GETS EARLY RELEASE, BACK IN NEW YORK, June 12, 1,683 reads

The Free Lance broke national criminal justice news in 2023. Scooping New York's entire press corp to report the release from prison of the most notorious NYPD officer in history, Justin Volpe. The New York Post, the New York Daily News, the Daily Mail and the Staten Island Advance explicitly credited The Free Lance with breaking the story—only the New York Times did not.

3. CUOMO ACCUSER CLEARS CUOMO: MEDIA LIED FOR 'CLICKS AND EYEBALLS', Aug. 14, 2,046 reads

When one of Andrew Cuomo's accusers cleared the former governor of sexual harassment in a sworn deposition, The Free Lance thought it newsworthy. The media elite did not, because doing so would cause them to question too much of their shoddy reporting of her accusations. Score another major Free Lance exclusive.

2. UPDATED: NYPD FIRES ITS OWN WATCHDOG; APPROVED DISCIPLINE OF TOP NYPD COP JEFFREY MADDREY, Aug. 8, 8,257 reads

Another exclusive police-beat banger.

1. REVENGE PORN THREATS JAIL NYPD CAPTAIN, ALLEGEDLY ATTACKED FEMALE NYPD CAPTAIN, Dec. 16, 14,708 reads

The Free Lance was also the first to report the arrest of an NYPD captain for assaulting another NYPD captain—including a dramatic encounter inside an elevator at NYPD headquarters.

PERSONAL FAVORITES

3. 'MOST INFAMOUSLY OBSCENE BOOK’ IN HISTORY PROTECTS DRAG AND WHAT AMERICANS THINK, July 3, 124 reads

"All the secret sewers of vice are canalized in its flood of unimaginable thoughts, images and pornographic words." 

2. INSIDE THE ISRAELI PROPAGANDA MACHINE, Oct. 14, 167 reads

Modern propaganda decoded.

1. NY'S GOVERNOR WANTS TO GIVE WORK PERMITS TO NEWLY-ARRIVED MIGRANTS, BUT SHE WON'T GIVE ONE TO A LIFE-LONG NEW YORKER, July 7, 64 reads

The Free Lance made a single exception to its policy against opinionating with this editorial and others urging the state legislature and the governor to make the Clean Slate Act law. That’s because he is formerly incarcerated himself and could not sit on the sidelines for this fight.

Employment discrimination against former felons, like him, is also what led him to found The Free Lance in the first place.

While New York's media elite ignored the Clean Slate movement, or even opposed it (like they rejected his job applications), The Free Lance editorialized in its favor. Kathryn S. Wylde, President of the Partnership for New York City, a business group that backed the Clean Slate bill, said linking Clean Slate with migrant work permits was key to persuading Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign the Clean Slate bill into law. 

Personally, enactment of the Clean Slate Act caused the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to finally issue me, in Dec. 2023, the outdoor guide license I qualified and paid for in Nov. 2022.

FINANCES

The Free Lance is not just transparent about its readership. Its also transparent about its funding. It received a total of $835 in donations. The largest was $100 the smallest $20. All donors were individuals. No group donations were received. About half of the donors were journalist colleagues. That’s $2.50 a day—about the average prisoner wage in New York, as I reported in 2017.

In sum, I made a pretty big bang for a buck.

THE FREE LANCE NEEDS YOUR DONATIONS TO SURVIVE. DONATE HERE.