Yes, someone runs this. No, you don't get a name.
An anonymous letter from the desk of Free Agency Media.
I've spent the last decade in the DC ad scene. In glass-walled offices with Cannes posters on the wall. In folding-chair rooms with a pitch deck open on a borrowed laptop. In Slack channels that wouldn't make sense to anyone outside the building.
The work is good. A lot of the best work is done by shops nobody outside the industry has heard of. The 14-person team that just shipped a Coca-Cola spot. The 28-person shop quietly running a Nike account for three years. The strategy lead who left a holdco to start something on her terms and now has 9 Fortune 500 clients on retainer.
Nobody covers them properly. AdAge prints holdco press releases. AdWeek plays both sides. Indie Agency News charges $595 a year and gates the directory. The actual reporting on independent agencies is thin, and what exists is usually written around an agenda.
So this is the side project. Free Agency Media covers the independent shops doing Fortune 500-caliber work. It runs daily. It's free. It doesn't sell anything.
I keep my name off it on purpose. The minute the editor becomes the brand, the publication becomes a vanity project. The work is the story. If you want a face on the masthead, this isn't the publication for you.
If the work is good, we'll cover it. If we cover yours and we got something wrong, we'll find out and fix it on the page. That's the whole arrangement.
── The Editor
What We Cover
Campaigns
The creative work independent shops produce for major brands. Attribution, not just admiration.
Industry
Account moves, market shifts, and the trends reshaping how brands choose agency partners.
Agencies
Verified independent shops doing Fortune 500-caliber work.
People
The founders, ECDs, and strategists building independent shops on their own terms.
How We Work
Free Agency Media combines automated signal detection with old-fashioned reporting. We monitor thousands of public data points across the independent agency ecosystem every day: new business wins, account moves, leadership changes, campaign launches, award results. When a signal clears the threshold, it becomes a story.
Every agency in the directory earned its place through editorial coverage. We don't accept submissions. We don't sell listings. We don't run “claim your profile” flows. The directory is a byproduct of what we cover, not a product we sell.
Editorial Standards
Editorial coverage is never influenced by commercial relationships. There are no commercial relationships. The publication doesn't take ad revenue, sponsorship, paid placement, or pay-to-play directory fees. Coverage runs because the work merits coverage.
- Accuracy first. Every claim is verified against public records, official announcements, or direct confirmation before publication.
- Independence verified. Agencies in the directory are confirmed independent. No majority holdco ownership. No hidden parent structures.
- Named sources, named work. We attribute claims to named individuals and organizations. We name the agency, the brand, the people, and the numbers. Anonymous sourcing is reserved for cases where source protection is genuinely necessary.
- Data over adjectives. Revenue figures, headcount, search volume, and award counts replace vague language about “growth” or “momentum.”
- No holdco PR. We don't rewrite press releases. Reporting reflects the independent agency perspective, grounded in data and direct observation.
- The editor stays anonymous. By choice. The editor is a working creative in the independent ad scene who keeps the publication and the day job in separate lanes. The work being covered is the story. The editor's name is not.
Corrections
We get things wrong sometimes. When we find out, we fix it on the page with a dated note explaining what changed. We don't silently edit published content.
There's no corrections inbox. By design. If something is wrong, we'll catch it the same way we catch the stories: public records, agency filings, official announcements, and people who pay attention to the same beat we do.
No inbox. No newsletter. No social accounts. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The site is where the work lives. If you want more, read more of it.