The Fifth Column

#404 - The Fall of the House of Tucker and Traffic w/ Ben Smith

Apr 28, 2023

02:00:28

Creator website

Episode guests

Ben Smith

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

The Role of Facebook in Democracy: A BuzzFeed Perspective

01:23

CNN and MSNBC performing fan service for political blocks

01:46

Mark Zuckerberg's Business Decision: Copying Twitter to Beat the Competition

01:21

Reflecting on the Progressive New York Liberal Scene

01:36

Introduction

2min

The Unceremoniously Booted CEO of Buzzfeed News

4min

The Lockdown on COVID

2min

The End of an Era: Vice News Tonight

4min

The Cable Television Dial: What to Expect

2min

The Politics of Disinformation

2min

The Heterodox Point of Don Lemon

2min

The Importance of Fan Service for Political Blocks

3min

The Power of Substacks

1min

10.

The Material Effect of Cable News on People

4min

11.

Tucker Carlson and the American Prospect

2min

12.

Tucker Carlson's Footsy Playing

2min

13.

The Vayification of Tucker Tucker

3min

14.

The Importance of Trusting Others

2min

15.

The Iron Law of the Universe

3min

16.

The Real Anthony Fauci Bill Gates, Big Pharma in the Global War on Democracy and Public Health

4min

17.

The Horseshoe Theory of American Crack Pottery

4min

18.

The Right Wing Smear on the Koch Brothers

4min

19.

The Anti-Vaxxer

2min

20.

Tucker Carlson and the Libertarian Movement

4min

21.

Ben Smith's New Book Traffic

2min

22.

Breitbart: A Manic Idea Factory

2min

23.

The End of Social Media

4min

24.

The Tactics of Facebook

3min

25.

The Rise of Right-Wing Populism

2min

26.

The Death of Vise

3min

27.

The Rise and Fall of BuzzFeed

2min

28.

The Power of Cruelty

2min

29.

The Last Ethnicity of the Era

2min

30.

Sipatika With Nick: A Novel About Black Models

2min

31.

The Impact of the Internet on Media Properties

2min

32.

The Fear of All Zoomers Are Coming for Us

2min

33.

The Semiform of Journalism

4min

34.

The Pros and Cons of Donald Trump

3min

35.

Tucker Carlson's Influence on the Conservative Party

3min

36.

Fox's Marina Bragante's Video of a Racist Being Fired

2min

37.

Rupert Murdoch's Fire of Tucker Carlson

2min

38.

Rupert Murdoch's Engagement With Tucker Carlson

2min

39.

How to Find the Truth About Eric Bowling

2min

40.

The One Thing You Can't Do in 2015

3min

41.

The Importance of Subscriptions in Journalism

2min

42.

The Importance of Ideology in Advertising

1min

43.

The Rise and Fall of TV

2min

44.

The Nightmare of Ben Smith

2min

45.

The Importance of Fact Checking

3min

46.

The Cruel and Destructive Culture of Twitter

2min

47.

The Tide Is Turning in Some of These Institutions That Felt Like They Were Losing Their Mind in 2020-2021

2min

48.

The New York Times and the Internet

3min

We’re back with one long episode in two cracking segments. First up, Welch and Moynihan (Ed. note: Kmele is currently peering through a telescope on the South Side of Chicago or something) catch up on all the stupid news of the last week, including…

* The news of certain…errrr……media layoffs

* Defenestrations at Fox News and CNN

* The “they-ificaton” of Tucker Carlson

* The bizarro world of Robert F. Kennedy Jr

* Lil’ Bobby: Prosecute people I disagree with

And then it’s an hour with return guest Ben Smith (his third appearance, we think?), editor-in-chief of Semafor, former editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News, and author of the new book Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral. No explanation needed. It’s good. You’ll like it.

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