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Outlet profile

UnHerd

UK right-of-center / populist-conservative

Owned byOwned by Sir Paul Marshall, co-founder of the hedge fund Marshall Wace, through Old Queen Street Media (OQS Media), which also owns The Spectator and Apollo magazine
FundingMix of reader subscriptions (paid members get ad-free access and exclusive content) and backing from Paul Marshall, who provided an endowment at founding; the site initially ran without a paywall before transitioning to a metered subscription model around 2020–2022
On the administrationmixed

Background

UnHerd was founded on 21 July 2017 by conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie and hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, with Marshall providing a multi-year endowment to get it off the ground. The stated mission was 'slow journalism' — prioritizing ideas and analysis over breaking news, and platforming views outside the mainstream media consensus. Montgomerie departed in March 2018, and Sally Challerton (formerly of the Daily Telegraph) became editor in September 2018. Freddie Sayers, who joined as executive editor in 2019, rose to editor-in-chief and CEO. Marshall, originally a Liberal Democrat donor, became a committed Brexiteer and shifted firmly toward the British right; he has since assembled a portfolio of right-of-center media properties under OQS Media, including The Spectator (acquired around 2024) and Apollo. UnHerd moved from a fully free model to a metered paywall around 2020–2022, adding paid subscriptions as a revenue stream alongside Marshall's financial backing. Media raters place it right of center: AllSides rates it Center while Media Bias/Fact Check rates it Right-Center with mostly factual reporting. The outlet has drawn criticism from the left for platforming contrarian and conservative voices, and has been noted for its Brexit-sympathetic and anti-mainstream-media editorial identity. A July 2025 piece titled 'We deserve better populism' illustrated its willingness to offer nuanced or critical takes even within a broadly populist-conservative frame.

Sources

  1. UnHerd – Wikipedia
  2. UnHerd Media Bias – AllSides
  3. Unherd – Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
  4. The U.K.'s unorthodox UnHerd: Leaving the mainstream media pack behind – The Hub
  5. Paul Marshall, the man who owns the right – The New World
  6. Freddie Sayers – Publisher of Spectator, UnHerd, Apollo – LinkedIn
  7. Old Queen Street Media – OQS Media
  8. UnHerd – Ideas you won't hear elsewhere (homepage)
  9. Making Media Great Again – London Review of Books (Peter Geoghegan)

Profile compiled 2026-07-31; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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