Ben Smith
The Disruptor
Contrarian and drawn to the edge; challenges the settled answer.
Ben Smith is a prominent journalist known for his work in reshaping media narratives and audience engagement. This interview reveals his forward-thinking leadership style, emphasizing the importance of adapting to changing media landscapes and connecting with readers through unconventional methods.
“Yeah, I mean, I think traffic was the commodity that people like Jonah, like Nick Denton, who founded Gawker. Like you and me, felt like we had sort of discovered. And I remember putting the first kind of tracker on my website and watching it come in.”
“I'm thinking in retrospect, Fox looks incredibly smart for not going public. And BuzzFeed went public through a SPAC and the process dragged until it was the absolute worst time possible to do it in all the capital they thought they were going to raise with us back went away.”
“I'm not on the inside of that anymore, and I don't know. I mean, I do think to me one of the most interesting and strange things is, you know, when I was going back and reporting traffic huffing a post was this. Bold new digital entry that captured attention and dramatically.”
“I think the big story in some ways about news, media is a huge business, but I think about news, which is a smaller business, is going to be about the tensions between institutions. And the challenge, which I certainly think about constantly about how do you square the two?”
The Axe Files with David Axelrod — Ep. 136 - Ben Smith
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