The Washington Free Beacon’s reporter Stephen Gutowski left the outlet Friday to launch his own publication solely covering guns.
“After 6 amazing years with the @FreeBeacon, I’m starting my own publication called The Reload,” Gutowski tweeted Monday morning. “It will focus on sober, serious firearms reporting & analysis.”
After 6 amazing years with the @FreeBeacon, I’m starting my own publication called The Reload! It will focus on sober, serious firearms reporting & analysis. You can sign up for the free weekly newsletter or a paid subscription right now! https://t.co/b8ZGoJu4oQ
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) April 19, 2021
A pro-gun advocate and a certified firearms instructor, Gutowski left the Free Beacon to launch “The Reload,” a Substack publication in which people have to subscribe to his reporting, according to Washingtonian.
“The idea here is to be focused on reporting and analysis,” he told the outlet. “Not on hot takes. Not on partisan cheerleading.”
“I think there are far too many people who do a disservice to their fellow Americans by misleading them, either out of ignorance or malice, about how firearms work, how gun laws work, and why people own guns,” Gutowski told the Daily Caller. “And I think the media tends to focus mainly on hyper-partisan opinions and hot takes provided by people with little knowledge of guns.”
Gutowski told the Daily Caller the site, which will be “reader-funded” will “cover gun stories ignored by major media outlets and offer insight that isn’t available anywhere else.”
Gutowski told Washingtonian people should subscribe to “because they want to know what is actually going on in gun politics and policy and gun culture without all the B.S.” (RELATED: 2 Out Of 3 Americans Favor Tighter Gun Control, Poll Shows)
Before launching the gun-focused platform Gutowski covered the Second Amendment and guns, according to Fox News.
“There isn’t a single gun beat reporter at any major outlet outside of the Free Beacon, which was me,” he said. “There aren’t many publications that are focused on hard news reporting when it comes to firearms.”
The popular conservative reporter reportedly made the decision to join Substack after noticing how other journalists like Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald have done fairly well after shifting their reporting to Substack.
The subscription will cost $10 per month or $7 a month for subscribers who join during the launch period, according to Gutowski. Substack takes a 10% cut of subscription fees and charges for credit-card processing, Washingtonian reported.
Gutowski is offering an exclusive, ten-slot membership costing $1,000 that will get participants a day at the gun range with him, according to the site.
For those that don’t want to pay for a subscription they can sign up for a free weekly newsletter, Gutowski said.
Gutowski said he hopes “The Reload” will be informative and close any gaps in coverage, according to Fox News.
“There’s a big problem in our current media landscape when it comes to reporting on firearms. There just is, it’s undeniable,” he reportedly said. “There’s a lot of mistakes that happen continually. And that’s something that I don’t think is acceptable.”
“That’s something where I think I can fill a need with this new publication … There’s a lot of blind spots in major media over that stuff.”