Media Expert Ben Smith Tells All

The Compound and Friends

Josh Brown

Business News, News, Investing, Business

4.7 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this special episode of Live from The Compound, Ben Smith, journalist and co-founder of Semafor, joins Michael Batnick and Josh Brown to discuss Ben's new book, Traffic, his new media entity Semafor, and much more! Ben Smith is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Semafor - a global news company. Ben is a former media columnist for the NYT and former Editor-in-Chief of Buzzfeed News. Ben just released his book Traffic which focuses on digital media in the 21st century. Ben's book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/678592/traffic-by-ben-smith/ Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Wealthcast Media, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	5PM East Coast, our guest today is coming from the West Coast. Welcome everybody to a special
0:19.5	edition of Live From The Compound. We are so excited to talk to Ben Smith today. Ben
0:24.6	is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semaphore, a global news company. Ben is a former
0:30.3	media columnist for New York Times and editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News. Ben just released his
0:36.0	book Traffic, which focuses on digital media in the 21st century. Ben Smith, how's life?
0:43.9	How's everything? It's good. It's good, Josh. Thanks for having me on. You didn't even mention
0:47.5	like you. I'm basically a blogger. Yeah. Well, a lot of us started as bloggers and now
0:53.4	we talk into microphones, but it's almost the same thing, right? More or less. Yeah. Equal lack of
0:57.8	editing. Do you remember a total aside? When was the last time I saw you? I think we went out to
1:03.5	dinner with like 10 financial bloggers, something like that, between the Buzzfeed days. You guys were
1:09.8	launching Buzzfeed business. You remember that? That sounds right. Yep. Okay. I know. It's a long time ago. Okay,
1:18.2	so first of all, the book is out and I know you're doing a lot of media around the book and I
1:24.2	really wanted to just have you on and talk to our audience. And our audience is kind of the
1:28.5	intersection of financial services, asset management, trading, investing, and then of course financial
1:36.1	media. So it's like a wide range of people, but everything is business-related for the most part
1:42.4	that we do on the channel. And to some extent, your book is a media story, but it's also a business
1:49.5	model story. Can you talk a little bit about what drove you to write traffic? Why now? Why is it so
1:56.9	relevant to what we're living through these days? I mean, I guess you know, I sort of started out,
2:03.8	you know, on the internet in the early 2000s as a local political reporter. And you know,
2:09.6	came to Buzzfeed in 2012, left in 2019 or 2020, I guess with the feeling like, huh,
2:15.4	like this feels like a whole moment is coming to an end of the sort of sense that the internet was
2:21.0	this rising new thing that was going to displace legacy media and you know, and you could sort of
	...

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