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Ben Smith

Ben Smith

Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Semafor

Ben is the former media columnist of the New York Times. He was previously the founding editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News from 2012 to 2020. Ben covered American politics for more than a decade at Politico and the New York Daily News, among other outlets, and launched a number of political blogs.

In Trump 2, personnel isn’t policy

Just as the president often ignored his conventional advisers in the first term, he’s stunned loyalists by sweeping aside this carefully assembled apparat in 2025.

Donald Trump at a Cabinet meeting

Michael Wolff’s unexpected Instagram success

The Trump reporter is regularly going viral with knowing explanations of the president’s inner life.

Several angles of Michael Wolff in his house

How Fox got ahead on the big media future

The deals represent a dramatic change from Fox’s reputation of keeping a tight hold on talent.

News Corp. HQ

Scott Galloway on money, marketing, and masculinity

Scott Galloway has become ubiquitous in the new media world — and he’s emerged as a voice for an underserved audience of young men on the left.

Semafor Mixed Signals

Justice Department drama clouds White House’s antitrust approach

A tug-of-war over antitrust enforcement tests the White House’s dual impulses to challenge tech companies’ consolidation and to simply back big American business.

Kevin Lamarque/File Photo/Reuters

Venture firm hires ex-journalists for AI comms ‘accelerator’

The program promises “to address a critical gap in the AI market: narrative clarity.”

Screenshot of Founder’s Box website

How to resist the Epstein temptation

Those of us trying to stay sane ought to keep in mind the distinction between evidence and speculation, fantasy and reality.

Director Ari Aster on ‘the movie that Twitter wrote’

“Eddington” is a modern Western placed in the height of lockdown during the 2020 pandemic, where the real villain is digital media.

Punchbowl News expands to video

The Capitol publication is launching a weekly YouTube show called “Fly Out Day.”

Why YouTube’s favorite doctor won’t stop talking about politics

Doctor Mike is a leading medical voice in digital media, with over 14 million subscribers on YouTube.

Steve Inskeep on NPR cuts, Iran, and radio’s place in the podcast era

Steve Inskeep has one of the most recognizable names and voices in the country, greeting millions of Americans every morning since the 2000s.

Eric Adams suddenly finds ‘overwhelming support’ from NYC’s desperate business elites

Wall Street’s business community looks poised to rally behind Adams, dogged by corruption and low japproval ratings, to keep Zohran Mamdani from winning November’s general election.

State Department delegation pressures Europeans on speech in Paris, London

Samuel Samson, a young and intensely ideological senior official, got a chilly reception from Reporters Without Borders.

Steve Bannon goes to war with Fox News

“The Murdochs don’t put America’s interests first,” Bannon told Semafor Sunday.

Is journalism bad for The New York Times’ business? with CEO Meredith Kopit Levien

The New York Times has weathered incredible changes in the media industry throughout its 174 years – and it’s managed to stay on top through the recent shift to digital, topping podcast charts and becoming a daily app for games and cooking.

Navy dissented from US push to move assets to Middle East

The Navy’s complaint reflected long-running worries that the service is overstretched.

Trump’s shadow on the Riviera

Marketing is another major front in Donald Trump’s media war.

Pentagon split over Trump’s Israel policy

A long-running debate inside Trump’s administration is growing more intense as aides argue over pulling assets from Asia into the Middle East.