Ben Smith's Influence-Operation Semafor Steps Up to the Big Leagues!

Semafor, co-founded by noted Regime propagandist Ben Smith, was started up with $10 million of stake money from Sam Bankman-Fried.

After Bankman-Fried's corrupt motives were made obvious to the public and it became difficult for Ben Smith to explain why he started his company with money from a guy who openly spoke of buying off the leftwing woke media and political class, Semafor started talking about grifting new money from new investors so that they could buy out Sam Bankman-Fried's stake.

Fledgling news site Semafor said it is planning to buy out the nearly $10 million investment it received from Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

The media startup founded by former Bloomberg CEO Justin Smith and former New York Times media columnist Ben Smith is planning to buy out Bankman-Fried's ownership while it "explores raising new money," the New York Times reported Wednesday.

I think that's a good idea. Sure, Semafor will just have another deep-pocketed investor who will exert influence over it. But the important thing is that Ben Smith is moving Semafor away from the old business model in which his "media company" was easily corrupted by malign outside influencers.

I'm sure that, going forward, Ben Smith will make sure that any entity Semafor gets into bed with will be ethically clean and without any corrupt agenda to influence American media for its own advantage.

Unrelated, and I mention this just in passing: The Daily Caller reports that Semafor is partnering up with a Chinese think tank with connections to the Chinese intelligence services.

Yeah that sounds about right. I really should have just expected that, the moment they started talking about "seeking new funding."

Semafor, the company behind influential newsletters popular among policymakers in Washington, D.C., has partnered with a think tank with links to an intelligence service administered by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The news outlet announced on its website that it would be launching a new initiative, "China and Global Business," that aims to promote economic discussions between Chinese and U.S. leaders, with events scheduled in New York City and Beijing. However, Semafor is undertaking the initiative in partnership with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a think tank with links to a Chinese influence and intelligence organization, according to multiple intelligence experts and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC).

CCG is led by Wang Huiyao, who also serves as an adviser to the United Front Work Department (UFWD) and serves in leadership positions with several groups under the UFWD umbrella, according to multiple intelligence experts and the USCC. The UFWD has been identified by government agencies, legislative bodies and experts as a central organ of CCP influence efforts, and experts also say UFWD works in concert with Chinese intelligence operatives.

In addition, Wang is reportedly affiliated with organizations directly linked to the CCP.

posted by Ace at 03:02 PM

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