Last week, I wrote to you about my efforts to bring a new sense of mission to Hot Air, as well as provide continuity. Now that we have most of the elements in place — although more will come as we go along, of course! — I’d like to provide a mission progress report, so to speak.

By now, you will have met all of the new players. David Strom officially joined us today as a full-time contributing editor, and as you can see, David has a lot to say. Karen Townsend has been spending the past month working full time, and Beege Welborn has made a big splash in just the past week with Hot Air readers.

We have even more going on in our VIP space, where my focus has been on creating new and value-added content. Duane Patterson has provided new insight based on his myriad connections from the Hugh Hewitt show and over twenty years of talk-radio producer experience at The Hugh Hewitt Show. Tom Jackson brings Florida’s politics to us in a twice-weekly column. We will hear more from other Townhall Media editors as well.

And of course, we launched The Amiable Skeptics featuring Adam Baldwin on Friday as exclusive VIP content! Adam is well-known for his long and storied Hollywood career, starting with My Bodyguard, and especially for his roles in Full Metal Jacket, Firefly, its film sequel Serenity, Chuck, and The Last Ship. I’ve been honored to be his friend for several years, and am delighted to bring you into the conversations that Adam and I have had in the past. The first episode was an hour-long introduction to our video series, but future episodes will be two-parters of roughly 30 minutes in length.

All of which goes to show that this is a great time to sign up for our VIP membership! Use the code SAVEAMERICA and get a discount on both VIP and VIP Gold membership, which unlocks members-only content on all Townhall Media sites. This also unlocks the ability to get involved in our VIP Gold chats, but members at both levels can add comments and join the conversation on Hot Air posts any time.

Readers should have noticed a renewed focus on setting the tone for the opposition to Joe Biden and the Democratic governance of the past two years. We aren’t shying away about the debates over conservative policies and Republican missteps either, as our new writers have demonstrated. The priority is the elections in front of us and the policy issues that depend on their outcomes. We have already seen boosts in traffic on those issues, and especially in our newly revamped Headlines section.

What comes next? After all, this is just a progress report, not a Mission Accomplished declaration. We will still look for ways to get more voices involved here, especially in areas of expertise that matter in this cycle and the next. We will continue to add more VIP content, but not at the expense of our non-member readers — although we hope more of them will join the effort to support alternative media.

Our team is fired up and ready for this mission. We hope we can provide you with the resources to get fired up for it as well.

Yours,

Ed Morrissey
Managing Editor