Some thoughts on my Substack journey

(and what’s next!)

Matthew Smith

Apr 12, 2025

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share a few thoughts from my side as we head into a new chapter here.

When I first jumped onto Substack, honestly, it felt like being handed a Swiss Army knife when I wasn’t sure if I needed to build a campfire or open a bottle of wine. Is it a blog? A podcast platform? A newsletter? A community? Turns out, it’s kind of all those things, and figuring out how to best use it has been a real learning curve. Like a lot of things in life, you sort of figure it out as you go, often with a little help (and patience) from your friends – that’s you all!

That learning process definitely applied to how the Suriname story unfolded here. Many of you have been following along since the beginning, and I know there were probably times you were thinking, “Okay, where exactly is this going?” Trust me, I was right there with you, asking the same question. It was very much a case of building the plane while flying it – laying down track just ahead of a speeding train, maybe?

But then, as the research deepened, as facts emerged, things started clicking. It became clear this was a much bigger story than I initially realized, one with tangled threads nobody seemed to have fully stitched together before. There were visits to former mercenary camps, deep dives in the National Archives, files arriving from FBI FOIA requests, and even a wild synchronicity involving a childhood classmate who, it turned out, had literally written the history book on Suriname. It sounds wild, but as many of you know, that’s just how these quests tend to go sometimes.

Now, as I’m nearing the end of this particular investigation phase, the full picture has come into focus. And it’s time to tell that story clearly. That’s why I’m really excited (and honestly, a bit nervous, in a good way) to announce that I’ll soon be releasing “The Secret War for Suriname: Project Democracy, the CIA, and the Untold Chapter of Iran-Contra“– a final, five-part wrap-up of this investigation. The first post will come out this week!

I’ve poured a lot into this, and I’m genuinely proud of how it’s turned out. I truly believe it’s an important piece of investigative journalism, sharing a story that has needed telling for a long, long time. I hope you’ll find it as compelling to read as it was for me to uncover and write.

This whole process has also brought a lot of clarity about how I want this publication – ByMatthewSmith – to work moving forward. My goal is really to organize it around the core mission: following curiosity wherever it leads. You can get a better sense of this on the new About page here I recently put together.

Going forward, the plan is:

  1. Pick a topic that my curiosity sinks its teeth into.
  2. Share the research, the deep dives, the raw findings with you here (this will always be free).
  3. Once an investigation phase wraps up, I’ll organize those research posts into the archives
  4. Then, I’ll create a final, polished summary piece – like the upcoming 5-part Suriname series – which might eventually become a book, a documentary (fingers crossed on that front!), or another focused series.

In the meantime, I also want to explore more ways to connect and share the ‘in-between’ stuff. Expect more frequent updates using Notes – sharing quick thoughts, everyday curiosities, links, maybe asking questions. I’m also keen to explore podcasting more seriously.

And for those interested in a deeper community connection, I’m thinking about creating a Discord channel – basically an online forum where we can chat more directly about topics of mutual interest, share ideas, etc. Access to that would likely be for paid subscribers, as a way to support the time involved and keep the core research/writing freely available for everyone for the foreseeable future.

So yes, I’m still building the plane while flying it, but hopefully with a clearer flight path now and maybe a little less turbulence ahead!

Thank you, truly, for being here, for reading, for your patience, and for coming along on this journey. It means the world.

Thanks for flying Air Matthew,

Matthew

P.S. Let me know if you like this video summary/chat approach and whether you’d prefer more of them alongside the research.

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Matthew Smith

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Date:
October 26, 2025
Categories:
Matthew Smith
Tags:
Boxes:
Press
Years:
2025
Persons:
META DATA
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