Ben Smith

Benjamin Eli Smith (born November 4, 1976) is an American journalist who is the co-founder of Semafor, a global news organization he formed with Justin Smith in early 2022. He was previously a media columnist at The New York Times from 2020 to 2022. From 2011 to 2020, he was the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News. Early life and education Smith was born and raised in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of author (née Goldston) and attorney Robert S. Smith, an associate judge on the New York Court of Appeals. His mother was Jewish and a Democrat. His father was a Christian and conservative. He admired his grandfather, a novelist who ghostwrote for Mickey Mantle and Tommy John, and his grandmother, a Mark Twain scholar. He attended Trinity School (New York City) on the Upper West Side. He graduated with a B.A. summa cum laude from Yale University in 1999, where he wrote for The Yale Herald and The New Journal magazine. He was a resident of Morse College. Smith first became interested in journalism during junior year of college as an intern at The Forward. Career Smith's first professional reporting job was the crime beat for The Indianapolis Star. He then moved to Latvia to take a position at The Baltic Times and also began reporting for The Wall Street Journal Europe (until 2001). Smith has also written for The New York Sun (2002–2003), The New York Observer (2003–2006), and the New York Daily News (2006–2007) Between 2004 and 2006, Smith also started three New York City political blogs: The Politicker, The Daily Politics, and Room Eight. Politico Smith wrote for the news outlet Politico from 2008 to 2011, joining as that site expanded. Joining Politico from the New York Daily News in 2007, Smith covered the Democratic presidential primary for Politico in 2008. He covered controversies including Barack Obama's contacts with former Weatherman Bill Ayers and conspiracy theories about Obama's citizenship and Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories. Smith reported erroneously during that 2008 campaign that John Edwards would be dropping out of the race before the press conference at which Edwards announced that his wife Elizabeth had cancer. Smith later posted an apology and retracted the story. In 2010, he reported on a confidential Republican National Committee fundraising presentation counseling the party to capitalize on fear.