Episode 121: Ben Smith
Ben Smith had a front row seat to momentous shifts in the media that changed newspapers and magazines forever. In the early 2000s, readers began flocking to websites like Gawker and the Huffington Post for gossip, news and information. In 2012, Smith became the founding editor of BuzzFeed News, the site which helped reinvent the way news was covered. He’s also responsible for publishing the Steele Dossier, the controversial report that contains allegations about a conspiracy between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government. Smith wrote a book about this media revolution and the race to go viral called Traffic. We talk about how online entrepreneurs wound up taking down traditional media and what happens next.