The world was a very different place four years ago. The Chainsmokers were enjoying having the No. 1 song in the country rather than being chastised for hosting a concert in the Hamptons during a pandemic. Nobody had any reason to know who Jacob Wohl was. The Cubs hadn’t won a World Series in the past century. (Yet.) But most important—for the purposes of this email—I was still in college. And if there’s one thing you should know about college students, it’s that they love free stuff.
Sure, I had a little walking around money from my job, uh, walking around campus collecting students’ dirty laundry. But when I got an email advertising free stuff—food, basketball tickets, smoothies, tutoring—I was there.
I’m Declan Garvey, the guy who manages our Morning Dispatch team. My job is a little more glamorous now—I try to air out politicians’ dirty laundry, not my classmates’—but old habits die hard, and I’m still a sucker for a good deal. That’s why I’m writing to you today about the 30-day free trial we’ve got going at The Dispatch.
If you’re anything like me, your first reaction upon hitting a paywall on the internet is to … open an incognito browser and refresh the page. If that fails, you move on with your life, condemning the knowledge that lies beyond to a fate not unlike the lost works in the Library of Alexandria. I can get plenty of news for free, why would I ever pay for it?
Now that I’m on the other side, I’ll tell you why: High-quality reporting is not free to produce. So if you’re getting your news for free, it’s either not high-quality, or you’re paying for it in some other way: Intrusive and spammy pop-up ads, autoplay videos, mediocre stories written to spark outrage and drive clicks. The Dispatch is offering something better, so we need your help to keep the lights on.
But for a limited time, you can sign up and receive the full suite of our editorial products—the daily Morning Dispatch, three French Press and two G-File newsletters per week, economic insights from Scott Lincicome and foreign policy analysis from Thomas Joscelyn, access to interactive Dispatch Live events (there’s one tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET!) with all your favorite thinkers and journalists—for an entire month without paying a cent. Love it (you will) and you can become a member for $100 a year. Not for you? Cancel anytime, no one will be any the wiser.
We’re entering the home stretch of one of the most pivotal—and least conventional—elections in recent memory. We may be a small team (though we’re growing!), but we’re committed to working incredibly hard these next few months and beyond to cut through the noise for you, delivering what you actually need to know straight to your inbox and podcast feeds. No performative hot takes, no needlessly inflammatory rhetoric, no agenda.
There are plenty of things not worth spending $10 a month on. That fourth Chipotle burrito since the calendar turned comes to mind. But in my humble opinion, your information diet—particularly now—isn’t a place to skimp. Give us a chance these next 30 days, risk free. In the words of then-candidate Donald Trump four years ago last month: “What the hell do you have to lose?”
Please note that we at The Dispatch hold ourselves, our work, and our commenters to a higher standard than other places on the internet. We welcome comments that foster genuine debate or discussion—including comments critical of us or our work—but responses that include ad hominem attacks on fellow Dispatch members or are intended to stoke fear and anger may be moderated.