Hello, everyone! I’ve returned from the tranquility of the Gulf Islands on the West Coast of Canada and I’m now busy trying to get my bearings in the crumbling, crazed (but very much alive) metropolis that is Toronto. I’ll soon have some thoughts to share on the insights my weeks offline yielded — more than you might imagine! — along with an announcement. But for today, I want to catch you all up on a few developments from the summer.
The Trust Spiral continues to gain momentum. I have been pleasantly surprised by the level of interest in the book, which, as we know, focuses on media standards and practices, a topic that rightfully makes many people’s eyes glaze over. I have really enjoyed the conversations I’ve been having with fellow journalists, including with those who remain skeptical of my argument.
I’ve also had the pleasure of interacting with members of the public and hearing why they’ve lost trust in the media. One point in particular has been driven home to me by news consumers. Time and time again, I heard that they are having an increasingly difficult time figuring out what the actual facts are on any given story. Countless people told me that they were baffled by the current news environment; they said they felt increasingly compelled to read multiple sources across the political spectrum, attempting to piece things together for themselves. This, of course, is far from ideal. Not only is it time-consuming — it offloads the work we journalists should be doing on to the public at large — but it is also profoundly disorienting and dispiriting. This feedback indicates that we in the media are failing in our basic function, which, as the investigative reporter Matt Taibbi has said, is simply to tell people what’s happening.
On to other news … Some weeks back, I did a livestream with my colleague and friend Meghan Daum. I’m happy to be able to share that video with you today. For years, Meghan was one of my favourite people to read. During the pandemic, when she launched her terrific podcast, she became one of my favourite people to listen to. Now she’s become one of my favourite people to talk to as well. In this livestream, we discuss The Trust Spiral and delve into the Canadian “mass graves” story. (In June, the American outlet Persuasion commissioned me to write a piece on that journalistic debacle; you can read it here.)
For more Trust Spiral coverage from this summer, you can watch my interview with the Canadian Senator (and former journalist) Pamela Wallin here, on her No Nonsense podcast. Lean Out guest host Chief Aaron Pete also had me on his show, Nuanced. My Full Press co-host Harrison Lowman invited me on the Hub Dialogues program at The Hub. The Canadian journalist Peter Nowak was kind enough to host me on the Do Not Pass Go podcast and I spoke with the Canadian commentator Brian Lilley on the Full Comment podcast. I also appeared on the Conversations podcast, over at the American outlet First Things. I also had a very interesting conversation on the start-up podcast The Canadians.
If you missed it, I was lucky to get to launch my press tour with an event with Cardus in Ottawa, in conversation with the National Post’s parliamentary bureau chief Stuart Thomson. You can read reviews of the book at MediaPolicy.ca, Blacklock’s Reporter, The Brandon Sun, and at the Chicago outlet Arts Fuse. You can read a Q&A between myself and Meagan Gillmore over at Canadian Affairs.
A special thank you goes to Lydia Perović from the excellent Long Play Substack, who organized a lively pub night event for the book last week in Toronto. And to Meghan Daum, William Deresiewicz, Uri Berliner, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Eric Kaufmann, and Ruy Teixeira for their generous endorsement blurbs for the book.
I’m a big fan of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, so I was thrilled when they recently hosted me for a discussion of The Trust Spiral with Canadian Press reporter (and longtime Carleton journalism school instructor) Jim Bronskill. I’ll be posting that here when it’s available to the public.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be appearing at the Kingston Writers Fest next month, in conversation with Literary Review of Canada editor-in-chief Kyle Wyatt, who was the catalyst for The Trust Spiral — assigning me the 2024 Massey Essay, on which the book is based. You can get tickets to our event here.
Despite all this activity, I did still manage to take a few weeks totally, blissfully offline. As mentioned, this hiatus bore much fruit, which I hope to share with you all in coming days and weeks. Stay tuned for more!
