The 2025 academic year marked a major step forward in the growth and integration of Hoover’s marketing and communications efforts. Building on a decade of innovation that anticipated today’s digital-first environment, Hoover’s Marketing & Communications team has long been at the forefront of translating academic insight into engaging content. This year, the team stepped up the tempo of its newsletter—from weekly to every weekday—and started offering daily audiocasts of the newsletter. It also launched Hoover’s very own Substack publication, Freedom Frequency. Hoover’s podcast offerings saw their audiences grow significantly during this period. In the past year, Hoover produced more than 100 videos and several regular and limited-series podcasts that collectively generated 51 million views in the first nine months of 2025, a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
GoodFellows Marks Five Years
Emerging as a new way to distill new ideas during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, GoodFellows has now aired more than 160 episodes, filled with the wisdom of its principal hosts, senior fellows H.R. McMaster, John H. Cochrane, and Sir Niall Ferguson. Hosted by Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen, GoodFellows hosted a series of distinguished guests in 2024–25, including Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice. The show also continues to elevate the work of other Hoover fellows, who made a number of key appearances on the program over the last 12 months.
Launches on Substack
The Hoover Institution launched Freedom Frequency on Substack in September 2025, giving readers a place to find leading Hoover scholars offering in-depth insights and solutions to America’s most pressing challenges. More than just a digital publication, Freedom Frequency is a gateway into Hoover’s intellectual ecosystem, where public policy, academic rigor, and actionable insight meet. Designed to be discoverable, shareable, and community-driven, the platform features deeply insightful essays, videos providing thoughtful perspectives on current events, and premium content from our flagship podcasts. Initial contributions featured leading Hoover fellows Condoleezza Rice, H.R. McMaster, Victor Davis Hanson, John H. Cochrane, and Elizabeth Economy, exploring a broad range of policy issues.
The launch marks a pivotal evolution in how the Hoover Institution delivers its ideas to the world.
Senior Fellow Steven J. Davis recorded a special series of episodes during the Federal Reserve gathering at the 2025 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. Here he is interviewing Claudia Goldin, Harvard University professor of economics.
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Expanding Scope and Reach of Digital Content
Hoover’s Marketing & Communications team develops and distributes content across a diverse range of platforms and formats. The past year has brought more than 100 videos and several regular and limited-series podcasts that collectively generated 51 million views in the first nine months of 2025, a 40 percent increase over the previous year. Hoover’s email ecosystem also grew substantially, with the Hoover Daily Report evolving into a five-times-weekly curated newsletter with parallel audio function, contributing to a total subscriber base of 88,000.
Driving to the Heart of National Policy Debates
Throughout the past academic year, leading Hoover fellows found their way onto a host of traditional media properties and popular podcasts to publicize their research and offer their views on matters of public interest. In total, Hoover fellows made 572 podcast and broadcast radio appearances and 395 television interviews in 2024–25. Across a range of issues including trade, Iran’s nuclear program, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the future of AI, Hoover fellows took full advantage of a range of media platforms to advocate for American strength.
Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin appeared on the Dwarkesh Podcast to speak about his biographical work, soon to be three volumes, of Joseph Stalin.
COURTESY OF THE DWARKESH PODCAST
Hoover on Capitol Hill
Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster testifies before the US House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection in Shultz Auditorium on May 28, 2025.
Patrick Beaudouin
Hoover fellows are frequent guests in the halls of American power, delivering insightful, fact-based testimony to help guide the nation’s leaders. Apart from engaging in tours and meetings with legislators on major Stanford initiatives, Hoover fellows including H.R. McMaster, Joshua D. Rauh, Drew Endy, Joseph Ledford, and Patrick A. McLaughlin have testified to members of Congress in 2024–25. These appearances demonstrate how Hoover fellows are routinely called upon to help inform and guide policymakers as they grapple with America’s toughest challenges.
