Introducing Soft Power

A show about how realpolitik shapes the world

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we get our information.

In an era where our institutional gatekeepers are poor, distrusted, and marginalized; where politicians want to deliver the news to their constituents directly and where news influencers want to be political kingmakers; where a small number of tech behemoths get to decide who gets to see what and when; and where our hunt for information brings us to an infinite liminal space where nothing is true and everything is possible — I can’t help but feel like things aren’t going well.

Given all that, I think it’s easy to sound like a real bummer sometimes.

But, here’s the thing: People are, naturally, inclined to try and tell stories and explain the world to each other, even if there are forces trying to frustrate that. And that is quite cool.

Over the past few years, I’ve been more-and-more enthralled with new kinds of storytelling happening on YouTube and other video platforms. This content — what the kids call a video essay, but which looks awfully similar to old-school news magazine show — is well-written, neatly produced, in-depth, topical, and super popular.

Creators like TLDR News, Stewart Hicks, Oh The Urbanity, Polyphonic, Search Party, Johnny Harris, and a ton of others are all finding new ways to communicate about global affairs, urbanism, design, music, sports, politics, and everything else through a medium that, for the moment, seems pretty friendly to it.

I’ve always said that I never want to produce journalism that I wouldn’t also want to consume. But I also really want to produce the kind of journalism that I find most engaging.

So, last year, when Bigger Than Our Borders reached out to flag a grant they provide to good journalism about the state of world, particularly as it relates to impact of — and the need for — good foreign aid and humanitarian assistance, I pitched a crazy idea for a YouTube channel that would explore those ideas in-depth. They didn’t think it was so crazy.¹

The result is Soft Power, a show that breaks down the complicated forces that shape our world. It’s a show about all the things that don’t get as much attention these days — diplomacy, security, aid, trade, spying, and realpolitik. These are the (sometimes unsexy) things that make the world safe and prosperous, and they’re worth spending some time focusing on. So that’s what I’m hoping to do.

Episode one, all abut Moscow’s violent and self-serving mission to win over the Sahel, is out now.

This is a side project that I’m incredibly excited to continue in the coming months, which I’ll be doing alongside my regular writing here on Bug-eyed and Shameless and my regular columns in the Toronto Star.

And so I’ve got an ask for all of you: Can you please subscribe to my channel?

That way, you’ll never miss an episode and you get to tell the all-powerful YouTube algorithm that my channel is worth paying attention to.

I’ll be back with a new episode of Soft Power in just a few weeks, and then you’ll be seeing regular episodes, right into 2026.

Until next time!

1. A little disclosure note here to say that this funding from Bigger Than Our Borders was provided through an open and public Request for Proposal process, and that while we agreed on general topics and areas of focus, I retain total editorial control and independence over the project.