Ben Smith

Ben Smith is the co-founder and editor in chief of Semafor.

Confessions of a media chronicler

From our US edition

We held the party for my new book, Traffic, at Umberto’s Clam House, by the office of our new news organization, Semafor. Umberto’s is best known as the site of a notorious 1972 mob hit — “they blew him down in a clam bar in New York,” Bob Dylan sang of Joey Gallo. I’d worried the space was too small, but it was perfectly packed and noisy, with blue oil paintings of crabs on the walls. I broke off a conversation with CNN president Chris Licht to take a call from a recently fired anchor from another network. When I came back our executive editor Gina Chua began the short program by spilling who I’d been talking to.

ben smith