Biden’s Campaign Doesn’t ‘Brief’ The Media, It Colludes With Them

Whatever the Biden campaign wants from the media, it will get. They're always coordinating and strategizing according to Democrats' preferences.

Former BuzzFeed top editor says Facebook had 'explicit goal' to elect Barack Obama: 'A Democratic institution'



Former BuzzFeed editor in chief Ben Smith admitted Tuesday that Facebook was basically a "Democratic institution" bent on electing Barack Obama.

In an interview on MSNBC, Smith explained that while conducting research for his new book "Traffic," he was surprised to learn about the monumental role that Facebook and digital news outlets like the Huffington Post played in electing Obama.

"I think the thing that surprised me most was going back and seeing that there was this early internet scene where, to some degree, the explicit goal was to elect Barack Obama," Smith explained.

"For the Huffington Post, that was part of the point," he added. "And everyone just took for granted in that world that these were college kids, young people, newly on the internet — they were Democrats. Barack Obama visited Facebook. It sort of went without saying that Facebook was like a Democratic institution."

Smith is right. The 2008 election was the first that played out in significant part online. Obama won, in part, because he successfully utilized the novel digital world.

A US News article published in November 2008 explained:

This election was the first in which all candidates—presidential and congressional—attempted to connect directly with American voters via online social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. It has even been called the "Facebook election." It is no coincidence that one of Obama's key strategists was 24-year-old Chris Hughes, a Facebook cofounder. It was Hughes who masterminded the Obama campaign's highly effective Web blitzkrieg—everything from social networking sites to podcasting and mobile messaging.

Reality catches up with early ideals of digital news www.youtube.com

Smith's observation about Facebook and the liberal digital media world cements part of the thesis for his book: Obama's election seemed like the culmination of the new digital landscape, but Trump's election in 2016 was the true "apogee" of the digital media era because right-wing personalities learned from BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and Gawker Media to maximize the digital world to conservatives and, ultimately, Trump.

"[F]or the people who thought that they were the main characters, like me and you — it turned out it was Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon who were the main characters," Smith explained in a separate interview.

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Journalist admits real reason Biden broke Super Bowl tradition, refused Fox interview: 'It's pretty tactical'



Journalist Ben Smith explained Monday that President Joe Biden skipped a Super Bowl Sunday interview with Fox to avoid being confronted about questions overshadowing his presidency.

What is the background?

Traditionally, the president sits down for an interview with the network airing the Super Bowl. This year, that was Fox Corporation.

So, to avoid a hard-hitting interview with Fox News anchors, the White House requested that Biden sit down with Fox Soul, a little-known digital streaming channel that would be more favorable to Biden. But the interview never happened, resulting in the White House blaming Fox for the snafu.

What did Smith say?

During an interview on "CNN This Morning," Smith was asked about the White House's decision not to go forward with an interview.

"I think it's pretty tactical," Smith said.

"I don’t think this was necessarily them trying to strike some big blow against Rupert Murdoch, although if that’s a side benefit, I’m sure they’re into it. But they had tried to go to a subsidiary Fox channel, Fox Soul, to have the actress Vivica Fox — no relation — interview the president. She’s a supporter of his. When that kind of hit a bump, they discarded the whole thing," he explained.

Ultimately, Smith said Biden refused the Fox interview to avoid answering questions about 2024 and the scandals that have rocked his presidency, most recently the Chinese spy balloon incident.

"I think, actually, mostly it’s about the timing," he said. "If you had an interview with Joe Biden, if I had an interview with Joe Biden, you’d say, ‘Are you running for re-election? What is going on with the balloons?’ I don't think he— I think he wants to answer both of those questions at sort of the time and place of his choosing, and it wasn’t yesterday."

\u201cThe White House broke with tradition by turning down a Fox interview with President Biden before the Super Bowl\u201d
— CNN (@CNN) 1676300654

Smith predicted Biden will only appear on Fox News when White House officials "see it to their tactical advantage."

What was the WH excuse?

Although the White House clearly tried to avoid Biden being grilled by a Fox News anchor, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Fox Corp. had canceled the interview. But that was not true, Fox Corp. said.

Ultimately, the interview was never recorded, and the White House blamed Fox Corp. for that.

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‘Page Out Of The Same Book’: CNN’s Lemon Asks If Media Should Treat Musk Like Trump

'That’s a really good observation'

Ex-NYT columnist decides to call Tucker Carlson a racist to his face — INSTANTLY regrets it



Fox News' Tucker Carlson left former New York Times columnist Ben Smith stammering after the left-wing "smear merchant" tried to get Carlson to say he thinks "white people have some claim on America that people of other races don't."

BlazeTV's Dave Rubin played a video clip from the interview, which was part of a launch event for Smith's new media company Semafor, and couldn't help noting how quickly Carlson reduced his accuser to a "sweaty, smarmy mess."

"Tucker is the main pushback against all of these people, these people that have nothing," Dave stated. "That clown Ben Smith knows that Tucker Carlson is not a racist ... but it's all that they've got. All that they've got is, 'Oh, you somehow are stoking white outrage.' The funny thing about it is that they're the ones that are stoking white outrage all the time. They're the ones who are always talking about white privilege and how evil white people are and the patriarchy and all those things, and then they turn to the people who are saying, 'Hey, that's not true and we don't like identity politics,' and then they say to them ... 'you're the racist.'"

He added, "I think that this is what the left gets wrong about their political opposition and that's why they're losing," Dave said.

Watch the video clip below to hear more from Dave. Can't watch? Download the podcast here.


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