Hello there.

Happy Thursday and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Todd cast.

In a few minutes, I'm going to have an interesting conversation with Ben Smith.

Some of you may remember Ben Smith from the BuzzFeed Day.

Some of you may remember Ben Smith from Politico.

But he's also co-founder of a fascinating,

still new. It's a couple years old now, but still fairly new publication called Semaphore.

Their goal being to market to the 200 million, what is it, it's the, excuse me, more than that,

the, the, I think, 700 million English-speaking world that the the the i think 700 million english speaking world is the

goal um but 200 million in the in the in a certain demographic group of english speakers around

the world um but we talk a little bit of state of the media a little bit of uh the state of

of of international media a little bit of, uh, the state of, of, of, of, uh, international media a little bit.

Uh, I, I find semaphore extraordinarily helpful in, um, keep, they have newsletters about

every continent, the politics, the business of different continents. And I think their daily

newsletter on Africa and the Gulf states has made me a heck of a lot more informed

than just reading, just trying to, you know, read the economist or Financial Times or New York

Times to try to keep track of that stuff. So I find it to be an exceptional publication. I find

Ben to be a fascinating, he's got, he's got a fascinating view of media in general, but he's a New York

City guy. And so we spent a lot of time talking about Mom Donnie and the future of that race.

What does it mean for New York? He is a New Yorker through and through. Loves his city,

loves the history of the city. If you love New York, you're going to love this conversation with him.

Before I get to it, I got a few other things I want to get to, including I want to tell you about an event that I would just participate in.

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