Jack Benjamin
@jackcarterbenjamin
Senior reporter and podcast host for The Media Leader, a trade publication focused on all things commercial media. Writer, journalist, American in London.
I spoke to Meta's EMEA VP recently and asked her about privacy concerns around their line of smart glasses. Her response was basically that the LED light that shines when a photo/video is being captured (which mods have been able to disable) is a sufficient safety feature. Transcript:
That an editor thought this was worth a news story is so funny to me.
Very telling that NYT further publishes, in the comment section of Rufo's interview with Klein, a comment by Rufo saying, "it's better for the country to have a rational Right and a rational Left that can engage in dialogue and debate." As if his gutter racism represents the "rational Right".
I played around with the dev kit of these last year. The tech is awesome. The implications for privacy are terrifying. uk.themedialeader.com/snap-is-bett... My conclusions:
Reading between the lines of the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social 2026 Digital News Report, and it strikes me that news consumers still need traditional outlets to provide trustworthy news, but that they prefer to get the biased take from someone that agrees with their worldview. Seems healthy.
The Strait of Hormuz closure is forecast to threaten $94bn worth of global advertising investment over the next 18 months. uk.themedialeader.com/strait-of-ho... “If the conflict drags on — or further intensifies — these risks shift toward stagflation."
The sycophancy is really summed up here by comms director Steven Cheung. “Cheung gave neither a yes or a no, but said whatever decision Trump made would be the right one.” That is how people tend to consider acts of God, not the acts of a stupid, easily swayed, aging wannabe dictator.
It basically occurred as everyone speculated. Israel presented what US intelligence described as a “farcical” plan to topple the Iranian regime. Trump liked the idea. And the yes-men he surrounded himself with, despite all saying essentially it was a bad idea, also said they’d back his decision.
I don't know why, but looking at some of the most amazing photos I've ever seen, and right next to it seeing a comparably low-res selfie of the astronauts with their flimsy-looking eclipse glasses really makes it for me.
NYT on when it decides to publish an obscenity. www.nytimes.com/article/when... "For example, The Times doesn’t shy away from reporting vulgarities uttered by powerful public figures and wielded in a public setting." Apparently this comes with exceptions for Trump comma Donald.
Interesting analysis from “ad contrarian” Bob Hoffman, who is skeptical the social media addiction trial result is akin to a “Big Tobacco” moment. Big Tobacco’s consumers were the public, who cared about their health. Social media’s consumers are advertisers, who don’t care about public health.
Neither of these actions are legal, but you wouldn’t know that by the headline or description at most major US papers (NYT here as an example).
Meanwhile nearly half of creator advertising is not even being *seen* by users because the brand doesn’t appear within the first 3 seconds of a video. Because 86% of videos on Meta platforms aren’t being viewed longer than 3 seconds (!) Pretty shocking given Meta’s ad revenue growth.
Meta is on stage at Advertising Week Europe here in London. They haven’t addressed the addiction trial-sized elephant in the room, but they have shared some interesting data. 5 years ago, 0% of the content shown to users was from accounts you don’t follow. Last year it was 70%.
Seen today outside King’s College in London. Naively thought I’d escaped this by moving out of the States.
Apparently British people have "little knowledge" of SNL. The American critic calls it, "Like stepping into a well-run Starbucks abroad". The British critic: "The best sketches were good, but they highlighted the bloat elsewhere" Well yep, that's SNL for you. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/a...
New Bluesky CEO says ads are “near the bottom of the idea list” as the platform weighs its monetization strategy.
Today in ‘America is an Oligarchy’: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u... (Gift link)