Before Tortoise, Basia was news editor at HuffPost and worked on the foreign desk at the Guardian. She is on the board of The Student View, a charity trying to build a newsroom in every school.
Basia Cummings
Editor
“There has never been a more crucial time to expose the power gap, and build new and inclusive ways of telling stories that matter. I joined Tortoise to do just that.”
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Wednesday 22 November 2023
18:30-19:45 GMT
The News Meeting Live with Claer Barrett
Join Tortoise Media for a live recording of the hit podcast, ‘The News. Meeting’ and help set the news agenda.
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Monday 22 November 2021
18:30-19:30 GMT
Vanity insanity: How far would you go to change the way you look?
Are we losing our grip on reality when it comes to the way we look?
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Tuesday 26 January 2021
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
Add your voice to the Tortoise editors’ weekly news conference. Bring story ideas and perspectives. Have your say.
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Thursday 7 January 2021
18:30-19:30 GMT
Why do we climb mountains? with Ed Caesar
Why are humans so obsessed with climbing mountains. We ask the expert, Ed Caesar
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Tuesday 28 July 2020
18:30-19:30 BST
Monetising the sisterhood: do toxic cultures thrive in ‘feminist’ companies
How do feminist businesses balance profit and purpose? Does ‘the sisterhood’ really work for everyone?
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Wednesday 10 May 2023
The price of truth
Truth-tellers are defiant in the face of dictators, AI and misinformation
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Monday 22 November 2021
10 minute read
Sensemaker: British police culture
What just happened
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Thursday 15 April 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: The greatest good?
What just happened
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Tuesday 16 February 2021
Infodemic II
Super-spreader-in-chief
Robert Kennedy Jr’s anti-vaxx conspiracy theories are being shut down at last – but only up to a point
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Monday 21 September 2020
Long Covid
Long haul
Hundreds of thousands of people who thought they’d recovered from Covid-19 are still ill. Why?
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Tuesday 30 June 2020
Money & monarchy
Family misfortunes
Money is at the root of most of the royals’ problems
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Monday 23 March 2020
Infodemic-1
Fake news in the time of C-19
From miraculous cures to paranoid conspiracies, our investigation reveals how misinformation about coronavirus is going viral at a disturbing rate
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Thursday 23 November 2023
When is a tax cut not a tax cut?
After Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement Tortoise was joined by the FT’s Claer Barrett to record a special episode in front of an audience in the newsroom.
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Thursday 23 November 2023
The confidence game
Things begin to fall apart. Only a few years after Rebellion Defense’s rapid rise, it appears to be in trouble. The rebellion has failed to take off. In the secretive world of the military and big tech, Basia is met with a wall of silence as she tries to see inside the company… until a few former staffers agree to speak to her, revealing what happened behind closed doors.
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Thursday 23 November 2023
The rebellion
Oliver’s company, Rebellion Defense, is on the rise. In 2019, it is full of promise and pumped with cash, trading on the hype around what’s possible with AI in war. It attracts influential backers and goes after big government contracts. And it becomes even harder to sort fact from fiction – where is the scrutiny, and who is checking that any of this stuff is… real? As Basia delves deeper into the world of artificial intelligence, she hears from another former girlfriend of Oliver’s who knows about the ‘tissue of lies’ – and why it matters now.
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Thursday 23 November 2023
The secret life of Walter Mitty
Basia begins unravelling the ‘tissue of lies’, but it becomes clear that some of Oliver’s claims exist in the grey area, and in the secretive world in which he works, it’s hard to sift fact from fiction. Did he serve in the military? Is he an aristocrat? And as she traces his rise in national security, she is pulled into a bigger story – about a company, and a threat that is facing us all.
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Monday 20 November 2023
An English gentleman
It’s London, 2012. Oliver is a dashing diplomat. Charlie is a young graduate trying to find her feet in the world. They meet online and she falls in love. A few months into the relationship, and with his encouragement, Charlie applies for a job in British intelligence. She’s feeling optimistic, the interview goes well. Then, she receives a text message that turns her life – and her relationship – upside down. 10 years later, a mystery is still hanging over her. Walter’s War is an investigation into what happened next – a journey through big tech and national security, hype and hucksterism, where anyone who can tell a good story can go far. But how much is true?
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Monday 13 November 2023
Rory Stewart on David Cameron’s return and Suella Braverman’s sacking
Rishi Sunak has sacked his home secretary and appointed a former prime minister as foreign secretary. Rory Stewart, former cabinet minister and author of ‘Politics on the Edge’, joins the Tortoise team to discuss that and the situation in Gaza.
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Monday 6 November 2023
Should pro-Palestinian marches go ahead on Armistice Day?
James Harding and the Tortoise team are joined by economist Ian Goldin to discuss the pro-Palestinian protests in the UK, attitudes towards immigration and whether we should feel sorry for Sam Bankman-Fried
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Monday 23 October 2023
What’s delaying Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza?
As Israel prepares to enter Gaza, former BBC Middle East correspondent Paul Wood explains why the ground offensive hasn’t started yet and how Israel is approaching this war. Plus Labour’s by-election victories and Giorgia Meloni’s family values.
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Monday 16 October 2023
Israel and Gaza: Blinken’s diplomacy and Netanyahu’s next move
James Harding is joined from Jerusalem by journalist Noga Tarnopolsky and hears from Yousef Hammash, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy officer in Gaza.
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Monday 9 October 2023
Israel at war
Political scientist Yascha Mounk joins James Harding, Basia Cummings and Giles Whittell for this special episode making sense of the Hamas attack on Israel and where it might lead.
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Monday 2 October 2023
One thing unites the Tories – they’re all unhappy with Sunak
Plus: the water companies wanting to hike bills and the pro-Russia party that just won Slovakia’s election
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Friday 29 September 2023
Why are six young people taking 32 countries to court and what is Suella Braverman up to?
Giles Whittell is joined by comedian Andy Hamilton and Tortoise editors Basia Cummings and Jess Winch to discuss Suella Braverman’s speech about migration, the Portuguese young people taking countries to court and why we’re taking more sick days.
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Monday 25 September 2023
Is HS2 a high-speed failure?
Plus: Adidas’s single-use super shoe and the asteroid sample that could hold the secret to how life began
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Monday 18 September 2023
The Russell Brand allegations and is climate change to blame for the Libya disaster?
Basia Cummings is joined by Giles Whittell, Jeevan Vasagar and Coco Khan to discuss the accusations against Russell Brand, flooding in Libya and the American XL bully ban.
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Monday 4 September 2023
What a needless death teaches us about a toxic NHS culture
James Harding is joined by Tortoise editors Basia Cummings, Jeevan Vasagar and Giles Whittell. They discuss the risk of collapsing schools, an EU report on Kremlin disinformation and why the parents of Martha Mills, who died from sepsis, are campaigning for patients to have the right to a second opinion if they have concerns about their care.
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Thursday 24 August 2023
Bonus episode: After Prigozhin’s reported death, what now?
In this special episode of The News Meeting the team discuss what Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death means for Vladimir Putin, the Wagner Group, Ukraine and the West.
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Monday 14 August 2023
What do you do when somebody is dying at the top of a mountain?
Plus: what’s happening in Niger and why King Charles is getting a pay rise
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Monday 7 August 2023
What happens when you’re switched at birth and what does Rishi Sunak believe?
James Harding and the team discuss the jailing of Imran Khan in Pakistan, two Canadian men who discovered they were switched at birth and dozens of swimmers getting sick at the world triathlon championship.
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Monday 31 July 2023
Why should you care about a coup in Niger and what is carbon capture?
Liz Moseley and the team discuss Rishi Sunak’s new carbon capture scheme in the North Sea, the coup in Niger and the death of Rianna Cleary’s baby in prison.
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Friday 28 July 2023
How do you report climate science and should UFOs ever lead the news?
What should lead the news? Three journalists pitch the story they think matters most to deputy editor Giles Whittell. They discuss a new law that curtails the power of Israel’s Supreme Court, Nigel Farage’s war on Coutts and whether the Gulf Stream will really collapse by 2025. They also find time to talk about the US congressional hearings on UFOs.
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Monday 17 July 2023
European heat storm, inheritance tax, and Hollywood strikes
The team discusses the record-breaking heatwave in southern Europe, potential plans to scrap inheritance tax, and why Hollywood’s actors and writers are going on strike. James also reflects on The Sun’s coverage of the Huw Edwards allegations.
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Friday 14 July 2023
El Niño, mortgage costs, and missing migrant boats
Basia Cummings is in the editor’s chair. She’s joined by Cat Neilan, Claudia Williams and Stephen Armstrong who pitch rising mortgage rates, migrant boats missing in the Atlantic and catastrophic weather in the US.
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Thursday 6 July 2023
The whole truth
In the final episode, Ceri travels to meet Rob in a peaceful garden in rural Wiltshire. What unfolds is a heated exchange about what Rob’s story really is and what adds up to the whole truth.
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Tuesday 4 July 2023
Chicken feed
Rob is adamant that in all the years he was undercover, he never sent information back to his spymasters that harmed the campaigners. But when you’re the only one in control of the decisions, can you always get it right?
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Tuesday 4 July 2023
The verge
When Global Witness out Rob in 2015, things quickly fall apart. He loses everything that matters to him but to this day he believes that if his voice had been heard, it would have all worked out differently.
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Friday 30 June 2023
Russian infighting, Thames Water, and Nicola Bulley’s inquest
James Harding is joined by Tortoise journalists Basia Cummings, Claudia Williams and Cat Neilan. They discuss Russia after the failed Wagner rebellion, the politics of water amid fears that Thames Water could collapse, and a coroner’s ruling that Nicola Bulley’s death was accidental.
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Tuesday 27 June 2023
Poison into medicine
Rob Moore says he can justify going undercover among anti-asbestos campaigners because he was following a Buddhist principle, turning poison into medicine. To this day he believes that if the people he infiltrated would really listen to his story they’d understand him differently. But does his story really stand up to scrutiny?
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Tuesday 27 June 2023
The truth
Three years ago a former private spy came to our newsroom at Tortoise. He told an incredible story about infiltrating a campaign group, deceiving people for years but all the while being a ‘double agent’, before his world fell apart. And it all played out in the opaque world of corporate intelligence. Since then, journalist Ceri Thomas has been asking who Rob Moore really is and what his motivations were.
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Tuesday 27 June 2023
Project spring
It’s 2012 and Rob Moore goes ‘into the dirt’, undercover, to infiltrate a group of campaigners fighting for a ban on deadly asbestos. None of them knew they had a private spy in the camp. But it’s hard to stay hidden forever.
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Monday 26 June 2023
Into The Dirt
Private spy. Double agent. Whistleblower. Just who was Rob Moore?
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Thursday 15 June 2023
Jailed for abortion, Pacific warming and peerages
James Harding is joined by Tortoise editors Basia Cummings, Cat Neilan and Giles Whittell. In this episode they discuss a British woman jailed for using abortion pills, the El Niño effect in the Panama Canal and Boris Johnson’s honour’s list.
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Monday 12 June 2023
The News Meeting Live: Trump’s toilet troubles, wildfires and the allegations against Crispin Odey
In this episode, recorded at Kite Festival on Sunday 11th June, James Harding is joined on stage by Tortoise editors Alexi Mostrous, Basia Cummings and Jeevan Vasagar.
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Friday 28 April 2023
Sudan, the resignation of Dominic Raab and Joe Biden
James Harding is joined by Tortoise news editor Jess Winch, political editor Cat Neilan and audio editor Basia Cummings. In this episode they discuss the escalating situation in Sudan, the resignation of Dominic Raab and US President Joe Biden running for reelection.
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Monday 20 February 2023
Wagner’s war: A year in Ukraine and beyond
First they were known as the “little green men”, an anonymous private Russian force appearing first in Crimea, then Syria, then in central Africa. Now, they are on the frontline of Putin’s war in Ukraine. Just how powerful is the Wagner Group and their increasingly vocal founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin?
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Friday 10 February 2023
Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, Man City and BP
In this episode Tortoise’s editor-in-chief James Harding and the team discuss how the news should respond to major humanitarian disasters like the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
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Monday 6 February 2023
Wronged
What happens if the law gets it wrong? As two men found out in their fight for justice, it can move very slowly
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Monday 9 January 2023
Pay
How former PM Theresa May became the highest earning MP
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Monday 9 January 2023
Qatar
The Gulf state with all the gas and football stadiums has also been generous with donations to British MPs
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Monday 9 January 2023
Lobbying
How £300,000 was funnelled into a parliamentary group by medical device makers anxious to protect their interests in the UK
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Monday 9 January 2023
Perks
Meet the MP who’s taken 13 expenses-paid overseas trips with his wife – who’s also his assistant – as a member of 16 all-party parliamentary groups
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Monday 9 January 2023
Donors
Tory MPs accepted donations worth thousands in donations from a company they’d never heard of
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Monday 9 January 2023
The Westminster Accounts
Over £183 million of outside funds has flowed into this parliament alone, with no way of fully understanding who’s getting what, from whom, and why. Until now. This is the story of the money flowing into our politics, hidden in plain sight
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Thursday 15 December 2022
The OG Satanic Panic – where’s the evidence?
In this special bonus episode of Hoaxed, Alexi and Gemma catch up on what’s happened since the last episode of Hoaxed went out and Alexi goes back to the original satanic panic to examine the evidence. He speaks to a professor who investigated dozens of satanic ritual abuse cases in the 1990s – and to a psychotherapist who believes that satanism is a modern-day “Auschwitz”.
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Tuesday 15 November 2022
Out there
In the last episode, the team finally hears from a man they’ve been chasing for months. And they return to Maine, to tell Christopher’s parents what they have discovered
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Tuesday 8 November 2022
The rope
In episode 6, the team tries to understand the connection between Chris’s trip to South Sudan, and one taken by a group of American fighters just weeks before. Could this explain why Chris was called a white rebel? And after months investigating, Basia finally speaks to the fighter who fascinated Chris, and she asks – how close really were you?
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Tuesday 1 November 2022
Kaya
Months after Jeremy first approached Basia, the team fly to Nairobi to sit down with the mysterious essay writer. And it turns out that he is not the only person ready to share what he knows about who killed Christopher Allen
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Tuesday 25 October 2022
The Kaleidoscope
There is a new layer of horror to Chris’s story – and in trying to understand it, Basia investigates the evidence that Chris was killed on purpose. The team figures out how to get to South Sudan – and how to finally meet the essay-writer
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Tuesday 18 October 2022
The lonely impulse
Basia traces Chris’s career as a young freelancer. By now, it’s clear his death is tied to his life as a reporter. But who was he trying to be? Just how close was he to a group of fighters? And after years in Ukraine, how did he end up in a remote corner of South Sudan?
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Tuesday 18 October 2022
Spring break
At just 22 years old, Chris travels to Ukraine for his spring break, keen to see war up close. For the first time, he experiences the thrill and horror of the frontline. He’s hooked. Five years later, Basia, along with Chris’s cousin, Jeremy, visit Chris’s parents in America to piece together who he really was. There they learn a troubling new detail about Chris’s time in Ukraine
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Tuesday 18 October 2022
White rebel
Five years after his death on a distant frontline in South Sudan, the truth about what happened to Christopher Allen is still a mystery. Was he a reckless freelancer? A mercenary? Or a young and ambitious reporter, caught in the crossfire? Approached by a family member looking for answers, journalist Basia Cummings begins investigating
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Thursday 13 October 2022
Bonnie and Clyde
In the final episode of Hoaxed, Alexi confronts Abraham and Ella about what they did in Hampstead – and why. And the police give Alexi some surprising news
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Thursday 6 October 2022
The Healer
Alexi and his producer fly to Morocco to confront Abraham Christie – and learn dark secrets about his past
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Thursday 29 September 2022
Infiltration
For a conspiracy to spread, important people need to be listening. Alexi discovers that the perpetrators of the Hampstead hoax have friends in high places, while he and the team close in on Abraham’s location
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Thursday 22 September 2022
Secrets and lies
Two young children make horrific allegations in a London police station, lighting the fuse on one of the most serious British conspiracy theories in decades
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Thursday 22 September 2022
Ella’s list
Seized upon by conspiracy theorists, Ella’s list of alleged cult members spreads like wildfire across the Internet. Hampstead parents start receiving death threats and lives are torn apart
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Thursday 22 September 2022
The Avengers
The perpetrators of the Hampstead hoax meet their match in an unassuming mystery novelist, who is determined to expose their lies and bring them to justice
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Monday 8 August 2022
Hunt for the porn king: a reckoning
Last year, as women accused Pornhub of profiting from their abuse, we tracked down its intensely secretive owner. This week, we’re looking back to find out: what happened next?
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Monday 18 July 2022
Left to die: Return to the Amarula
Last summer our three-part podcast Left To Die told the harrowing story of 200 civilians trapped in a hotel in Mozambique under siege by violent extremists. This week, we’re looking back to find out: what happened next?
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Monday 25 April 2022
Mariupol
Two atrocities in the port city of Mariupol epitomise Russia’s violence in Ukraine. This is the story of those atrocities and of Mariupol’s truth
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Thursday 24 February 2022
Nina, Thursday 24 February 2022
In the first of our Voicemails from Ukraine, Nina tells us how she found out “it” – the invasion – had begun
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Monday 7 February 2022
Unforgotten: Syria’s war crimes
How the chief of a notorious Damascus torture unit was put on trial thousands of miles away, in a German courtroom
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Tuesday 4 January 2022
CoolSculpting
How a lucrative fantasy collided with the reality of the body
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Monday 20 December 2021
2021: Our year in stories
As 2021 draws to a close, Basia Cummings looks back over a year of Slow Newscasts with her colleagues James Harding, the co-founder of Tortoise, and Ceri Thomas. What’s changed in the way we think about podcasts at Tortoise? And are there any you’ve missed which you might want to catch up on over the Christmas break?
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Monday 1 November 2021
Shamsa, the forgotten princess
The abduction of a young woman from the streets of Cambridge is the origin-story of how Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai treats the women in his life
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Monday 11 October 2021
Havana Syndrome
The mystery of the immaculate concussion
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Monday 13 September 2021
Beau and Biden
President Biden believes his eldest son’s cancer, which claimed his life in 2015, was linked to his time serving in Iraq. It is a belief that makes sense of the loss, and – as has become clear in recent weeks – shapes Biden’s world view
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Monday 6 September 2021
Orphaned by America
Thousands of children were separated from their parents at the US border under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. This is the story of how, five years later, 300 remain lost in a system designed to swallow them
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Tuesday 31 August 2021
Smear
Grooming gangs, conspiracy theories and the lawless digital politics of Oldham
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Monday 23 August 2021
A son of Afghanistan
The story of Rohullah Yakobi, and a 20-year war
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Monday 26 July 2021
Boycott! The lost Olympics
With human rights groups demanding a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, we look back to Moscow 1980, and ask what’s the lesson of the most notorious Olympic boycott in modern times?
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Wednesday 23 June 2021
Left to die: Escape from the Amarula – Part 3
Nick Alexander tells the story of his torturous escape from the ambushed Amarula Hotel convoy – and the question left lying in the dust of the attack: who, really, abandoned them all?
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Tuesday 22 June 2021
Left to die: Escape from the Amarula – Part 2
In the second part in our series investigating how 200 civilians were left to die at the Amarula Hotel in northern Mozambique, we tell the story of their harrowing escape
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Monday 21 June 2021
Left to die: Escape from the Amarula – Part 1
In March, Islamist militants attacked the town of Palma, in northern Mozambique – the site of a $20bn gas project. They besieged a hotel, where more than 200 civilians were taking shelter. Help would soon be on its way, they were told. But the rescue never came. Why? In our new three-part series, we investigate what happened
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Monday 17 May 2021
Nail house: At home with the German far right
In the East German city of Chemnitz, political extremists aren’t just present – they’re organised. And they’re trying to spread their creed from ramshackle buildings to the rest of the country
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Monday 10 May 2021
White gold rush
California’s largest lake was a giant mistake created by an accidental flood more than a century ago. Today, the Salton Sea is an environmental disaster. But could the communities around the shore of the dying lake be saved by the quest for green energy and the hunt for one of the most sought-after elements on earth?
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Tuesday 4 May 2021
The cause: what happened to Shukri Abdi?
The death of Shukri Abdi in 2019 has become a cause for campaigners who believe that something unlawful happened. But is that the truth?
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Monday 19 April 2021
Lost at sea
The mystery of Gulf Livestock 1, a 12,000-tonne ship that disappeared without a trace.
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Monday 22 March 2021
The reasonable case of Keir Rodney Starmer
Who is Keir Starmer? There’s the basic answer: he’s the leader of Britain’s Labour party. But beyond that? Gaby Hinsliff delved into his past to find out more.
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Monday 15 March 2021
#Savagemountain
Reaching the summit of K2 in winter had never been done before. In January, a group of mountaineers – professionals, amateurs, social media adventurers – attempted it. It ended in #triumph… and tragedy
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Monday 22 February 2021
A very British business
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is one of Britain’s richest men. His decision to move to Monaco after receiving a knighthood has angered those who recommended him and raises questions about how this country’s honours system works
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Monday 15 February 2021
Fairy tale finance
A myth has been made: a tale of wolves on Wall St; a pack of principled amateurs biting the legs of greedy financial giants and bringing them down. But almost everything you think you know about wallstreetbets, GameStop and Robin Hood is wrong.
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Wednesday 13 January 2021
On the run from the United States
Can the American government get its hands on Julian Assange, one of its most wanted?
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Monday 11 January 2021
7 shots in the back – in self defence?
Jacob Blake was shot 7 times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin last August – another high-profile victim of police violence. But now the district attorney has decided not to press charges against the police. How can that be?
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Monday 23 November 2020
The Split
Is Scotland on an unstoppable march to leave the UK?
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Monday 9 November 2020
Hero of the financial revolution
Can the Chinese Communist Party learn to live with Jack Ma?
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Thursday 29 October 2020
Blessed are the deal-makers
Evangelicals have been key to Donald Trump’s presidency, and to his bid for re-election
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Monday 14 September 2020
Florida: The punchline state
“Weird shit happens every single day”
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Wednesday 26 August 2020
The hole in the sky
Just two years after scientists discovered we were destroying the ozone layer, the world worked together to fix it. Listen to the thrilling story of a race against time…
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Monday 3 August 2020
What the RFK Jr?!
From Camelot to conspiracy theories
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Tuesday 23 June 2020
The longest wait
Football is back. Liverpool can finally win their title. We met the man who revived the club and the city
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Thursday 4 June 2020
Inside Amazon: A superpower in a pandemic
What’s in the Amazon box? We open up the world’s biggest company and take a look inside
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Monday 25 May 2020
What if they don’t turn up?
Every year, millions of students migrate around the world. How will university towns survive if they stay at home because of COVID-19?
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Thursday 7 May 2020
Undercrowded and overfunded
What the empty super-hospitals tell us about the UK’s handling of Covid-19
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Thursday 16 January 2020
The man who counts trees
Trees are vital in the fight against climate change. Why was counting them so controversial?
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Thursday 9 January 2020
The new superpowers: Apple
The big technology corporations are more than companies, they’re global powers. It’s time we treated them that way