Decoder with Nilay Patel
Decoder is a show from The Verge about big ideas — and other problems. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to a diverse cast of innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and technology to reveal how they’re navigating an ever-changing landscape, what keeps them up at night, and what it all means for our shared future.
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- StandardSummaries onlyIt's about ethics in journalism, with Ben Smith
Published Aug 17, 2026
Ben SmithToday 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