Ben Smith
Decoder with Nilay Patel
It's about ethics in journalism, with Ben Smith
- Published
- August 17, 2026
- Duration
- 1h 11m
- Summary source
- description
- Last updated
- Aug 19, 2026
Discusses Today I’m talking to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor. Ben ran BuzzFeed News at the height …
Summary
Today I’m talking to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor. Ben ran BuzzFeed News at the height of the Facebook traffic boom, and even wrote a book about it, called Traffic, which he discussed with me on Decoder back in 2023. Semafor, which is only four years old, is now a fast-growing and profitable media company, which makes about half of its revenu…
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Show notes
Today I’m talking to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor. Ben ran BuzzFeed News at the height of the Facebook traffic boom, and even wrote a book about it, called Traffic, which he discussed with me on Decoder back in 2023. Semafor, which is only four years old, is now a fast-growing and profitable media company, which makes about half of its revenue from events. So I wanted to talk to Ben about how that all works, and what it feels like to navigate the ethical conflicts that seem to be ev