The paper was founded in 2000, by former student editors of The Observer, Bard's original college newspaper.
[2] To match the content with the form, issues of The Free Press were not organized according to traditional categories, sections, or columns.
The newspaper was financed through Bard's Convocation Fund,[3] a collective percentage of each student's tuition.
[8] The Free Press merged with the Observer in 2008, in conjunction with a major redesign that departed from a traditional tabloid format.
The paper was published once a month, and distributed throughout Bard's campus, and nearby towns Tivoli and Red Hook, New York.