News: Catch Matt performing in the Literary Death Match at London’s Stoke Newington Literary Festival, June 2nd!
I’ll be facing off against some of Britain’s best writers and comedians in the 26th Literary Death Match at London’s hipsterest literary festival this June. If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of sampling Outlaws Inc., or enjoyed it but suspect what it might be missing is a live, onstage setting in which its…
Comment: Duwayne Brooks and the London riot story that never got written
Some stories write themselves. Some never get written, though they’re better by far. There’s something irreducible about them, too many loose ends. They don’t have neat beginnings and endings. They don’t fit our (journalists’, readers’) idea of the arc. Sometimes they’re just collected impressions. This one’s like that, and I’m setting it down here simply…
Analysis: Auto destruct: the curious case of the flaming Mercedes (…not to mention the Audis BMWs, Porsches & VWs)
Who (or what) is behind Berlin’s bonfire of the coupés? This time, it was Porsche lighting up the night with its flames. A high-spec Cayenne, freshly waxed with all the extras. Its owner had parked it outside his apartment around midnight on the 21st September. By ten to five in the morning, it was just…
Comment: The best writer I know
While I was in New York, running around promoting the book and doing things I thought were all terribly important, something else happened. Jetlagged and excited, I sat on a step outside a Starbucks close to 5th Avenue to check my emails. There was a cheery, round-robin, letting-you-know email from a good friend…
Outlaws Inc is Maxim magazine’s big adventure
Maxim magazine has made Outlaws Inc. its adventure of the month for August, with a three-page feature interview on some of the key locations featured in the book. From mafia-run Belgrade to the bootleggers’ paradise of Kabul and war-torn Africa, the feature takes a long, hard look at just how the guns, drugs and gold…
Latest: Outlaws Inc makes front page news for the Huffington Post
The newly launched UK edition of the Huffington Post today picked up on Outlaws Inc., featuring the book’s whistle-blowing on the role of arms-traffickers in the Somali famine as its front-page story. The August 4th edition ran Matt’s exclusive 1,000-word outtake ‘Death dollars and déjà vu in Somalia: how the seamier side of the international airlift…
Analysis: Black PR, white noise: How grey goo is killing the news media (and the news media doesn’t seem to mind).
This is a post about a systemic failure in our media organisations when it comes to reporting, and it has nothing to do with Rupert Murdoch or plagiarism. It starts in Soho and ends in Syria. If you’re a journalist, you’ll probably know it already, so apologies – though a couple of events recently,…
Analysis: Death, dollars and déjà vu in famine-hit Somalia
Update, October 2011: This is the July 2011 post that spawned the recent CNN documentary. It appeared two weeks later in modified form on the Huffington Post. Famine declared by the UN in the Shabelle region of Somalia. Mogadishu in a state of “gun-blasted anarchy”. Aid floods in – but its effects are patchy.…
Oliver Stone and me: unfinished drinking business
I chatted to the legendary director about Fidel Castro, The Doors and more…