NewsFeed with @BuzzFeedBen

“I’m afraid, but I’m more curious. What I love about this moment, a few weeks before our first child is born, is wondering how it’s going to change our lives, and not having any idea. I'm wondering how it’s going to change me. How it’s going to change my emotions. The way I view the world. The way I view this administration. The way I view the media. I wonder if there’s any other element of life that’s like this." 

Ben interviews Brian Stelter: father-to-be, the host of CNN's Reliable Sources, and one of the "hardest-working people in this business."

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"You can upvote it all the way into Donald Trump's mouth." Ben talks to BuzzFeed tech reporter Charlie Warzel about how Twitter and Reddit trolling found its way into the White House briefing room.

Read more by Charlie Warzel:
- Here's How The White House Is Legitimizing The Pro-Trump Media
- From Reddit To Trump’s Twitter — In Less Than 24 Hours
- The Right Is Building A New Media "Upside Down" To Tell Trump’s Story
- “A Honeypot For Assholes”: Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure To Stop Harassment
- Here’s Where Donald Trump Gets His News 

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The intersection of politics, tech, and media is where all the action is. Since the 2016 election, politics and the media business have become inseparable. We’ve elected an entertainment figure as President of the United States. The  media political conversation is shaped and driven by tech platforms, and Twitter and Facebook have become totally central to politics.

For the inaugural episode, Ben visits David Axelrod, formerly Senior Adviser to President Obama, in Chicago to talk about Axelrod’s perspective on what was perhaps the original fake news story of this political era, his personal history with Trump, and the influence of Fox News.

Follow Ben Smith at @BuzzFeedBen, and hear him on this week’s episode of The Axe Files.

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