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Traffic Review Ben Smith On Bannon Buzzfeed And Where It All Went Wrong

Traffic review: Ben Smith on Bannon, BuzzFeed and where it all went wrong

by theguardian
30 Apr 2023
in politics

1.5 k views

Ben Smith is a willing passenger on the rollercoaster also known as the internet. He reported for Politico, was founding editor-in-chief at BuzzFeed News and did a stint as a columnist for the New York Times. Then he co-founded Semafor. Graced with a keen eye and sharp wit, he has seen and heard plenty.

Technology is agnostic. The market yearns to build the better mousetrap. Secret sauce seldom stays secret for long. Barack Obama demonstrated a then-unparalleled mastery of electoral micro-targeting; in turn, the first Trump campaign harnessed Facebook and social media in a manner few envisioned.

But there was more to the confab than atmospherics. There was insight.

These days, owning the libs takes precedence over policy debate. Exhibit A: Marjorie Taylor Greene. Mien matters more than ever.

He was prescient.

America now faces a rerun of the last presidential election, Biden v Trump again.