Ben Smith (journalist)
Benjamin Eli Smith (born November 4, 1976)[1] 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.[2][3]
For the editor of the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, see Benjamin Eli Smith.
Ben Smith
Early life and education[edit]
Smith was born and raised in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of author Dian (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.[4] He admired his grandfather, a novelist who ghostwrote for Mickey Mantle and Tommy John, and his grandmother, a Mark Twain scholar.[5] 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.[6] He was a resident of Morse College.[7] Smith first became interested in journalism during junior year of college as an intern at The Forward.[8]