Toby Muse returns to the podcast for the first time since 2020. Back then we talked about his book Kilo and his years reporting from inside the cocaine trade. This time the conversation shifts to what is happening to journalism, books, and our collective ability to pay attention. Toby is a war correspondent, author, and documentary filmmaker who has spent nearly two decades reporting from Colombia, Syria, and Iraq. He has strong views on where his industry is heading, and very few of them are optimistic.
What We Cover
- Kilo six years on, the Spanish translation, and why readers still email Toby regularly to say it is one of -their favourite books
- Whether books are heading the way of poetry recitals, and what that means for how we think
- The economics of journalism and why the money is no longer enough to attract the best people into the profession
- Audience capture: why media outlets have stopped challenging their readers and started confirming what they already believe
- The difference between punditry and reporting, and why someone still has to go to the places nobody else will
- News deserts and the disappearance of local journalism
- Why the documentary industry has narrowed to true crime and sports, and what has been lost
- The attention economy and what happens when even highly literate people stop reading
- Toby's argument that reading a book is now a small act of rebellion
- Whether there is any reason for optimism, and what it means to live purposefully in turbulent times
Key Takeaways
Journalism's crisis is not just financial. It is cultural. If outlets only deliver what their audience already believes, the profession loses its purpose.
The publishing industry is in serious trouble, not because people stopped buying books in shops, but because even committed readers are giving in to the pull of the screen.
Someone still has to do the expensive, time-consuming work of going to places and reporting. Substacks and podcasts are valuable, but they cannot replace that.
Reading builds concentration, patience, and the ability to follow a complex argument. Those are skills, and they are being lost.
In times of rapid change, the things you value will not survive by accident. You have to actively protect them.
Links
Toby Muse: https://www.tobymuse.com/
