Phoebe is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with an MA in Journalism from the University of Sheffield. Her writing has appeared in the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph. Before joining Tortoise, she worked as a freelance researcher for Unreported World and Channel 4 Dispatches and with major Iranian network ManotoTV.
Phoebe Davis
Reporter

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Tuesday 4 October 2022
18:30-19:30 BSTPaying for uni: do students loans work?
Join us for a ThinkIn where we try to make sense of the mess of student loans, and ask: what are the alternatives?
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Wednesday 17 March 2021
18:30-19:30 GMTThe Battle for Truth: Is local the answer?
Join us for a ThinkIn with local news innovators to discuss the future of local news.
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Thursday 5 November 2020
17:00-18:00 GMTHow to write with award winning poet Anthony Anaxagorou
Join our NextGen ThinkIns, created especially for students and apprentices.
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Thursday 29 October 2020
17:00-18:00 GMTHow to start a movement with anti-discrimination activist Alex Holmes
Alex Holmes used his personal experience of racism to start a grassroots movement that later saw him become deputy CEO in the charity sector.
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Wednesday 22 March 2023
Sensemaker: Spent force
What just happened
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Tuesday 14 March 2023
Sensemaker: NHS receipts
What just happened
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Friday 10 February 2023
Sensemaker: England at prayer
What just happened
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Thursday 2 February 2023
Sensemaker: Code red
What just happened
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Sunday 8 January 2023
Come fly, MP
Hidden in plain sight: David “Airmiles” Morris
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Friday 25 November 2022
Sensemaker: Winner takes it all
What just happened
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Friday 30 September 2022
Sensemaker: Chess conspiracies
What just happened
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Friday 16 September 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Standstill Britain
What just happened
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Monday 27 June 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: No Roe
What just happened
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Wednesday 1 June 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Abortion – the future is already here
What just happened
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Thursday 12 May 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Who abortion bans hurt
What just happened
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Wednesday 27 April 2022
Afghanistan 8 months on
Eight months after the US-led withdrawal from Kabul, the man who led President Obama’s surge there a decade ago laments a “heartbreaking failure”
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Wednesday 27 April 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Afghanistan 8 months on
What just happened
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Monday 11 April 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Prosecuting rape in war
What just happened
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Wednesday 6 April 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: The pay gap gap
What just happened
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Wednesday 23 March 2022
Still Covid
In the two years since Boris Johnson told the UK to stay at home, Covid has claimed more than 160,000 lives. Vaccines have saved lives across the world, but many fewer than they might have if fairly distributed
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Wednesday 23 March 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Still Covid
What just happened
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Wednesday 2 March 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Exodus
What just happened
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Thursday 24 February 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Russia invades
What just happened
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Wednesday 23 February 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Money balks
What just happened
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Wednesday 26 January 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Psychedelics on the NHS?
What just happened
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Friday 21 January 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Gas and hot air
What just happened
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Thursday 13 January 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Case not dismissed
What just happened
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Wednesday 12 January 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Geneva showdown
What just happened
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Tuesday 4 January 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Happy New Year?
What just happened
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Friday 17 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Staring into space
What just happened
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Thursday 16 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Nuclear Biscuit
What just happened
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Monday 13 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Griffiths v Griffiths
What just happened
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Friday 10 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Sticker shock
What just happened
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Wednesday 8 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: French connections
What just happened
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Tuesday 7 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Dysfunction and chaos?
What just happened
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Friday 3 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker Special: Boosters vs vaccinating the world
What just happened
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Wednesday 1 December 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Taliban murders
What just happened
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Monday 29 November 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Vax v variant
What just happened
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Friday 26 November 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Channel quarrel
What just happened
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Thursday 25 November 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Channel drownings
What just happened
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Wednesday 24 November 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: The Great Migration
What just happened
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Tuesday 23 November 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: No Bojo mojo
What just happened
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Tuesday 16 November 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: New lockdowns
What just happened
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Wednesday 10 November 2021
Counting carbon
The amount of carbon put out needs to decrease, the amount taken in to increase. To do that you need to count carbon. Welcome to remote sensing.
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Saturday 6 November 2021
Greta 2.0
The UK Cop presidency has made ending coal use its main mission. Will a new global deal succeed in banishing the black stuff?
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Tuesday 26 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Got your back
What just happened
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Tuesday 19 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: The Great Resignation
What just happened
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Thursday 14 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: The protocol stand-off
What just happened
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Tuesday 12 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Noble economics
What just happened
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Monday 11 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Britain and Europe: red lines at dawn
What just happened
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Friday 8 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Gas and hot air
What just happened
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Tuesday 5 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Facebook down
What just happened
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Friday 1 October 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Abortion in America
What just happened
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Thursday 23 September 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Nevergrande
What just happened
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Tuesday 21 September 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: America first, Haiti last
What just happened
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Thursday 16 September 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Long Johnson
What just happened
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Wednesday 15 September 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: News about news
What just happened
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Tuesday 14 September 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Taliban words and actions
What just happened
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Friday 3 September 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Back to school
What just happened
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Tuesday 24 August 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Zero Covid v Delta
What just happened
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Monday 23 August 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: It’s not over in Panjshir
What just happened
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Thursday 19 August 2021
Slow Reviews Part IV
Heathers
Phoebe Davis on a movie that showed the really, really dark side of teenage life
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Wednesday 18 August 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Vaccine hoarders
What just happened
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Friday 13 August 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Football and racism
What just happened
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Tuesday 10 August 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Hungaro-Polexit?
What just happened
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Monday 9 August 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Fire season
What just happened
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Thursday 22 July 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Pandemic of the unvaccinated
What just happened
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Thursday 15 July 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Farewell Hong Kong
What just happened
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Thursday 8 July 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Vaccinating America
What just happened
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Tuesday 6 July 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Vaccine neighbourhoods
What just happened
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Wednesday 17 March 2021
K2
Further reading
If you’ve been gripped by this week’s File on K2, there’s plenty more to discover. Here we’ve compiled a selection of books, films, articles and more on the Savage Mountain
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Tuesday 16 March 2021
K2
Straight up
Climbing K2 in maps and data
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Friday 12 February 2021
A year of Covid
Further reading
It’s been a year of Covid. Here is some extra reading material to help contextualise that time
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Thursday 14 January 2021
The Vaccine
A user’s guide
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Tuesday 24 November 2020
Downing Street: Cummings, communication & public confidence
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Monday 16 November 2020
What happened in care?
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Monday 6 March 2023
Family money
This is the story of a politician incapable of living within his means but talented beyond measure at finding people to help him live beyond them. It’s the story of how that dependence on others sullied him and them. All of which leads to one simple question: just who is funding Boris Johnson?
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Monday 25 July 2022
America at the crossroads: abortion in South Bend
The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse abortion rights is reverberating across America. Arguably nowhere more so than in South Bend, Indiana, a small city in the heart of the Midwest
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Tuesday 10 May 2022
HRT: the Davina effect?
The UK is currently facing a hormone replacement therapy (HRT) shortage. Could it have been avoided?
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Friday 8 April 2022
The conversion therapy conversion
The government’s conversion therapy ban is going ahead, but will not cover trans people. Why?
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Tuesday 5 April 2022
The gender pay gap bot
On International Women’s Day, a Twitter bot drew attention to the gender pay gap in Britain’s biggest companies. But does the data they report tell the full story?
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Thursday 20 January 2022
Virginia
Virginia Giuffre is Prince Andrew’s accuser. She’s fought some of the most powerful people in the world – and, amazingly, she’s won.
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Tuesday 4 January 2022
2022: Predictions
Today, we’re doing something a little different. We’re going to kick off the year by predicting a few big things we think will happen in 2022.
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Thursday 16 December 2021
Europe’s first cannabis country
This week Malta became the first European country to legalise the cultivation and possession of cannabis for personal use. Will this be a trend across the rest of Europe?
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Tuesday 7 December 2021
Dread in Ukraine
Russia is building up troops near its border with Ukraine. Moscow claims there is a growing threat on its western border. It all feels like a return to 2014… why the renewed tensions?
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Thursday 25 November 2021
The blob running Britain?
Kate Bingham is one of many public figures to accuse the government, civil service, and the media of being a “blob” resistant to reform. Is it really a problem?
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Tuesday 26 October 2021
Britain’s tumbling birth rate
In the UK, we’re having fewer children than ever before. What’s going on?
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Monday 18 October 2021
The return of inflation
Inflation – a rise in the cost of living – used to be a huge problem in the UK. Is it about to become one again?
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Friday 24 September 2021
Netflix’s golden ticket
Streaming giant Netflix has bought the rights to children’s author Roald Dahl’s stories. Is this the start of a new cinematic universe?
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Tuesday 24 August 2021
Time’s up for Tokyo?
This week the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games kick off. But with Covid cases on the rise, and the city under its fourth state of emergency, enthusiasm for the Games is beginning to wear thin. So what price are Tokyo’s residents really having to pay for the Games?
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Thursday 19 August 2021
Policing the incels
Jake Davison, an ‘incel’ who was radicalised online, killed five people with a licensed gun. Should social media checks be a part of gun ownership?
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Thursday 22 July 2021
A spy called Pegasus
Pegasus is a piece of spyware that can infiltrate your phone and steal its secrets. This week we learned how governments are using it.
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Monday 24 May 2021
The teenager who filmed George Floyd
Darnella Frazier was just 17 and on her way to the shop when she stumbled across a tragedy: the murder of George Floyd
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Friday 14 May 2021
Donald Trump – not president, still powerful
The sacking of a US politician this week shows that Donald Trump is still the biggest show in town in the Republican Party
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Friday 7 May 2021
Caitlyn Jenner runs into trouble
Caitlyn Jenner, one of the most famous trans people in the world, is running to be governor of California. But mainstream politics and trans rights don’t always sit well together.
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Friday 23 April 2021
Electric dreams in the USA
Joe Biden is pushing hard for action on climate change. Can he get America to drive electric?
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Monday 12 April 2021
The case of Katie Hill
Katie Hill is an American politician whose nude photos were published online by a newspaper. Now, a judge has ruled that these images are in the public interest. Are they?