Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Conversation begins at 8:15
Investigative journalist & longtime pal Mitchell Prothero (twitter.com/mitchprothero) joins the show to talk about his new podcast, GATEWAY: Cocaine, Murder, and Dirty Money in Europe (Project Brazen, https://brazen.fm/gateway/). We get into how the project evolved from his reporting on the global war on terror, how the cocaine trade mirrors the globalization wave, how Colombia's piece deal led to mega-cartel consolidation, why his EU law enforcement sources did not want to talk about the cocaine trade, and whether the Netherlands trial of drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridouan_Taghi) reveals cracks in the security of the state itself. We also talk about the differences between writing for a podcast vs. writing for readers (like his reporting at VICE News (vice.com/en/contributor/mitchell-prothero)), the strains of scheduling interviews with people under security detail, the changes in the media landscape over the course of his career, and his path through journalism, covering our days together in Annapolis to his time as a Capitol Hill reporter to stints in Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, and beyond. And we discuss how living and reporting in Baltimore in the 1990s prepared him for pretty much any scenario he's encountered since. Follow Mitch on Twitter (twitter.com/mitchprothero) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-544-mitchell-prothero • Support The Virtual Memories Show via patreon.com/vmspod and via our newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
Conversation begins at 8:15
Investigative journalist & longtime pal Mitchell Prothero (twitter.com/mitchprothero) joins the show to talk about his new podcast, GATEWAY: Cocaine, Murder, and Dirty Money in Europe (Project Brazen, https://brazen.fm/gateway/). We get into how the project evolved from his reporting on the global war on terror, how the cocaine trade mirrors the globalization wave, how Colombia's piece deal led to mega-cartel consolidation, why his EU law enforcement sources did not want to talk about the cocaine trade, and whether the Netherlands trial of drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridouan_Taghi) reveals cracks in the security of the state itself. We also talk about the differences between writing for a podcast vs. writing for readers (like his reporting at VICE News (vice.com/en/contributor/mitchell-prothero)), the strains of scheduling interviews with people under security detail, the changes in the media landscape over the course of his career, and his path through journalism, covering our days together in Annapolis to his time as a Capitol Hill reporter to stints in Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, and beyond. And we discuss how living and reporting in Baltimore in the 1990s prepared him for pretty much any scenario he's encountered since. Follow Mitch on Twitter (twitter.com/mitchprothero) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-544-mitchell-prothero • Support The Virtual Memories Show via patreon.com/vmspod and via our newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
