Ben Smith on the Turmoil at Buzzfeed, Fox News and Everything In Between

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

News Commentary, News, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To make sense of a turbulent and important week in media, we turn to Ben Smith who was the founding Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed News (2012 to 2020) and the former New York Times media critic (from 2020 to 2022). On the agenda: the shuttering of Buzzfeed News, the meaning of Murdoch's settlement with Dominion and what Ben is working on these days, including his news organization Semafor and his forthcoming book, Traffic. Since we taped Kara got her blue check (against her wishes!) when Twitter re-verified some accounts over the weekend. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. And you can follow Kara and Nayeema on Instagram -- yes, Instagram: @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:42.8	Hi everyone, from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:46.1	This is someone who is finally free from the tyranny of the blue check.
0:49.9	Thank you, Elon for that. Not kidding, but this is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher.
0:55.2	And I'm Neymar Asa. Well, congratulations Kara, I'm being freed from that tyranny of being a
0:59.6	lord and lady. Must have been hard for you. Yeah, I'm one of the people now. I'm one of the people.
1:04.3	It's made Twitter a very confusing place. It's like Blue Checkless universe and we saw
1:08.7	yesterday immigration services, New York City government kind of fighting to claim that they are
1:13.6	the ones that have their own accounts. It's all confusing now. Yeah, and they're important.
1:18.0	Emergency services should be absolutely verified. It's really important when there's disaster
1:22.8	response. A lot of people have talked about this. It's just stupid. The whole thing is stupid and
1:26.9	it just creates lack of safety on a platform that really needs safety and instead,
1:31.2	he made it into something ugly and tried to make it muddy off of it, but whatever. It's his
1:35.3	business. You know what, Kara, you could have been one of the ones that he floated like Stephen
1:38.6	King or LeBron James. That was so pathetic because they didn't want to be. They declined.
	...

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