Opinion
Ben Smith: Signal leak is the first massive breach in Trump's narrative
“Trump has had this remarkable three months of, and I think we looked at, I'm not sure we'll say that he got a lot done. I think the jury is very, very much out on like, wait, what exactly didn't get held up in court and what happened, but of absolutely dominat…”
Assertion Contradicted
Ben Smith: Pentagon advised Trump administration officials to use Signal
“And in fact, they had been told by the Pentagon they should be using Signal.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ben Smith: Pete Hegseth will survive Signal leak; Trump team blames Waltz
“Nobody's, I think the Trump people's view is you can't start throwing people overboard, so I think no. And in fact, they seem to be madder at Mike Waltz that he had Jeffrey Goldberg's number in his phone than they are mad at Pete Hegseth.”
Insight
Ben Smith: Media startups winning a Pulitzer guarantees imminent layoffs
“So the, my thesis about Pulitzers is that when a new media company wins a Pulitzer, you can just set the clock on layoffs.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2026
Ben Smith: House Democrats will convene corruption committees targeting Big Tech CEOs
“If the Democrats take the House, we're talking in 20 months, there will be a corruption committee convened, which will have Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and whoever talking in great detail, but every penny that was directed, and, you know, and I t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ben Smith: Trump administration is not easing Big Tech antitrust enforcement
“If there's one thing that Trump is not doing, it's laying off the antitrust stuff.”
Insight
Ben Smith: AI products built in four hours are completely indefensible businesses
“Also, right, I thought for two seconds, oh yeah, we should charge this as a product. And it's like, well, actually, if I built this in four hours, that's like not defensible. That is the least defensible thing in the world.”
Insight
Ben Smith: Original reporting is safe from AI, but writing is vulnerable
“In journalism, there's sort of, at one end is gathering facts that are not on the internet, and putting them on the internet, and then there's a lot of other things, writing and producing in the middle, and at the other end is connecting with, is a human being…”
Insight
Ben Smith: Silicon Valley wrongly thinks journalists are obsessed with clicks
“This is actually like a common Silicon Valley misconception that we are like obsessed with clicks as opposed to interested in information.”
Prediction Held up
Ben Smith: The Atlantic's Signal chat scoop will not win a Pulitzer
“No, and Pulitzer only goes to things that look like newspaper articles from the 19 seventies.”
Disclosure
Ben Smith: Semafor staff must build their own AI tools, not developers
“I'm not letting them ask Our developers to help them build AI tools. Like you can really in Google app script without knowing anything about, I mean, you can really like vibe code yourself some nice tools”
Insight
Ben Smith: Reporters landing major scoops rely on 'news luck'
“Don't you think, though, that as a reporter, there's something like, there's a kind of news, my only real superstition, that there's a kind of news luck, and some people have it. That was that I had it. Like, sometimes you just wind up in a room. Somebody invi…”
