They are a revamped version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. In this case, both are men and, instead of secret agents, they have spent their entire lives working as journalists. Only one of them, Justin B. Smith, 56, is the CEO of Semafor, the new American media outlet that has arrived with a mission to save the industry and has just been valued at $330 million.
Right now, Justin and Ben Smith, the other co-founder, are feeling optimistic and euphoric, according to interviews. They see themselves in a position to compete with the country’s major newspapers. The company announced last Wednesday that it has raised $30 million in a round of funding that it plans to use for international expansion and hiring more journalists, after closing its first year with a profit of nearly $2 million.
The media outlet plans to strengthen its presence in key markets such as the Gulf — where it already has several editors — launch a newsletter focused on CEOs in China, and expand its live events business in Africa and Asia. It currently has between 55 and 60 journalists on staff and plans to hire around 20 more. Subscriptions to its newsletters now exceed one million and are heavily concentrated among senior executives. Among them is The Signal, an exclusive invitation-only newsletter. For now, Semafor does not have a paywall, although the company is already working on a subscription model.
Smith has had a long career in the media industry. He spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Paris. His father was American and involved with international educational institutions, and his mother was English and an artist. For high school, he returned to the United States and studied at Phillips Academy, Andover, one of the most prestigious private boarding schools in the country and a traditional breeding ground for political, economic, and cultural elites. He later studied at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, focusing on international relations, diplomacy, and global power.
His professional career began at The Economist Group. He later moved to The Week, where he served as president, and then to Atlantic Media, where he was group president. There, he participated in the revitalization of The Atlantic and the launch of Quartz, one of the most influential digital projects of the 2010s. In 2013, he was named CEO of Bloomberg Media Group, a position he held for nearly a decade.
He lives between New York and Washington, D.C. He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has participated in leadership programs at the Aspen Institute, reinforcing his membership in the U.S. establishment. He launched Semafor in 2022 with Ben Smith, former chief information officer at BuzzFeed and media columnist at The New York Times. Both resigned from their positions to embark on this project.
Their ambition was to fill a gap that, in their view, had been left empty within the media ecosystem: to find a way out of the crisis facing traditional media, marked by the loss of confidence among large sections of the audience in the major newspapers. Semafor was born with an explicitly global mission. Despite having fewer resources than other established media outlets, it has placed a notable emphasis on having journalists working in regions such as Africa and the Gulf, in some cases with a greater presence than newspapers such as the Financial Times or The Economist.
This geographical ambition is complemented by a distinctive approach to presenting the news. In their pieces, they explicitly separate facts from interpretations and, in some cases, incorporate alternative perspectives or warn that the initial framing may be incomplete or flawed. Through this exercise of self-questioning, they aim to convey a greater sense of transparency.
In addition, Semafor has a highly diversified newsletter model. From the start, this format has been a central element of its strategy. Adding to this, the company has placed particular emphasis on live events, which — probably more than they would like to admit — now represent a substantial part of the business.
Drawing on their agenda and the relationships they have built over the years, these two figures have managed to organize events that attract members of the U.S. political, cultural, and journalistic elite. According to a report by New York Magazine, the audiences they draw are largely from an anti-Trump sphere, with positions leaning toward free trade, multilateral diplomacy, and an internationalist view of politics.
The report conveys an atmosphere that is distinctly selective and exclusive — an elite, albeit one in the process of reconnecting after having been sidelined. Of particular note is the Semafor World Economy Summit, a kind of smaller-scale Davos, which, year after year, has seen an increase in the number of political, business, and media leaders attending. In its first year, it organized 30 events; by 2024, that number had risen to 75. According to the founders themselves, these events are barely profitable. Admission is free, and they are mainly financed through sponsors.
In 2022, Semafor closed a first round of financing of about $25 million, with investors including Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Following the platform’s collapse, his stake became a reputational issue for the outlet, which later announced the repurchase and replacement of those funds to eliminate any doubts about its independence.
Among the criticisms the project has received — beyond isolated episodes such as public clashes on X with Elon Musk, or concerns over editorial integrity due to the profile of some investors — the main question concerns its actual reach. The underlying question is whether Semafor can transcend being a product designed for a highly select minority, which in its own words is aimed at the “200 million people who are college educated, who read in English, but who no one is really treating like an audience.”
Another uncertainty is its heavy reliance on in-person events. It is not entirely clear to what extent this model represents an update of traditional journalism or, whether, at its core, it is more like a new form of information lobbying, wrapped in the language and codes of journalism. For now, the Smiths can be satisfied with what they have achieved.
A Hollwood romance
Kill Bill. In 2021, Smith’s name appeared in the U.S. gossip press due to a romantic relationship with actress Uma Thurman, although he has never made his private life a central part of his public image.
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