Mixed Signals from Semafor Media

Updated: 21 Nov 2025 • 73 episodes
www.semafor.com/mixed-signals

Every Friday media reporter Max Tani and Semafor Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith pull back the curtain on the most important stories about media, revealing why you see and hear what you see and hear. Mixed Signals from Semafor Media is supported by Think with Google.

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New York Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor joins Mixed Signals to explain how she’s revealed the secrets of internal deliberations behind the ceremony and black robes of the US Supreme Court. Max and Ben ask whether the court is actually leaking more, how newer justices are reshaping its public face, and what Ka

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Is television the final form of all media? Derek Thompson, the co-author of Abundance, podcaster, and Atlantic writer joins Mixed Signals to explain what he sees as the forces behind what Ben and Max keep observing: The way in which podcasts and other forms of journalism appear to be getting their largest audience in a

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Will Welch is the global editorial director of GQ, and has been the editor-in-chief of its US operation since 2019. On this week’s Mixed Signals, Welch talks to Ben and Max about how the magazine plans to address men amid the prominence of the manosphere, the value in covering niche subcultures, and how the parties thr

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Ken Burns has been telling the story of America through his entire career with genre-defining documentaries on the Civil War, the Vietnam War, and now the American Revolution. This week, Ben and Max bring on the renowned documentarian to talk about his latest series, the parallels he sees between America’s founding mom

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American Eagle’s summer campaign with Sydney Sweeney blew up in ways no one could’ve imagined – but chief marketing officer, Craig Brommers, knew they were going to hit a cultural nerve. This week, Ben and Max bring on the AE CMO to give us an inside look into the “Great Jeans” campaign, what he made of the controversy

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Chicago is either a war zone quickly spiraling out of control, or a peaceful city under siege by an overreaching federal government. It all depends on who you ask — and which channel they watch. This week, Ben and Max bring on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to talk about how he’s navigating a communications crisis and a

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