Show Notes
This week, Jen’s guest is Ben Smith, author of Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral. This hot new book takes a close look at the people and the patterns behind the click-bait-journalism-world that helped inflate Donald Trump but also gave us a renewed faith in humanity with an endless supply of baby-animal rescue videos.
You know Ben from his role as the founding editor-in-chief for BuzzFeed News where he released the Steele Dossier to the world. Today, Ben is the editor-in-chief of Semafor, a new global news organization that launched last year. Just before that he was the media columnist for the New York Times. Jen and Ben recorded this interview just before Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced plans to shutter Buzzfeed News.
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Get More from Ben Smith Twitter | Website | Author of TRAFFIC
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More from Booked Up with Jen Taub
Today nearly three years after the attack on the US Capitol my guest is American hero, Aquillino Gonell, author of the new book American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy. You know Staff Sergeant Gonell as one of the brave members of the Capitol Police who defended our country and our constitution when insurrectionist mobs attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Welcome back to Booked Up, a podcast that features you, me and our favorite authors. We release a new episode every Sunday morning.
Rob Verchick, author of the award-winning new book, The Octopus in the Parking Garage: A Call for Climate Resilience is Jen’s guest today.
Today we are doing Jen’s favorite thing: following the big dirty money. This time the focus is on the world of private equity. Those two words together sound ever so restrained and elite, even contained. In reality though the world of private equity is rough and destructive and affects all of us from patients seeking health care to workers losing their jobs. There are more than $10 trillion in private equity assets under management. And many public pension funds as well as ordinary members of the public are invested. Not private at all.
Chuck Collins, author of several works of nonfiction including The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions is Jen’s guest today. They mostly discuss his debut novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun, a near-future story of one community facing climate disruption came out this May.