About our audio
Slow news stories designed for listening
Our audio journalism invites you into our newsroom, and takes you deeper into the stories.
The Slow Newscast covers our biggest stories and investigations of the week; the Editor’s Voicemail reveals what’s on co-founder James Harding’s mind; and Behind the News is a window into what’s going on in the Tortoise newsroom, exclusively for members.
The Slow Newscast
Our biggest stories, given voice
Shot in the dark
11 January 2021
39 minutes
The way out of the coronavirus pandemic has been discovered, but not yet delivered. Matthew d’Ancona uncovers the decisions taken – and not taken – that could delay our salvation.
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Crossing the Channel
A former army base outside Folkestone, Kent, is now the epicentre of the migration story
Did it have to be this bad?
The past nine months have been marked by trial, error and tragedy, so we held an inquiry into what went wrong – and right
Contract tracing
Why did a month-old company land a couple of big-money contracts for PPE? And what does it reveal about the British government’s response to the pandemic?
Clipped wings
Inside the rise and fall of The Wing, the feminist empire that got found out
You can listen to the Slow Newscast on any popular podcast platforms. Subscribe, listen, react. Be part of Tortoise
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Behind the News
What we’re working on
Episode 11: Covidcasting
19 December 2020
32 minutes
It’s the last episode of Behind the News for 2020, the podcast that takes you inside our newsroom – although, this week, we’re actually taking you inside another newsroom. TWiV (This Week in Virology) is a podcast that launched in 2008 but found a really large audience this year, due to the pandemic.
What have its creators learnt about the coronavirus during 2020? And what knowledge can they pass on to us?
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Episode 10: Cultural influence
Is the government filling the UK’s cultural institutions with people it believes will do its bidding? And, even if it is, is this anything new?
Episode 9: Clause Corbyn
Labour has once again descended into civil war. What does the decision to suspend Jeremy Corbyn say about the direction of the party and its leader, Keir Starmer?
Episode 8: What’s the deal?
Securing a trade agreement with the EU has proved harder than initially suggested. Is politics in its current form equipped to deal with the complex reality of globalisation?
Episode 7: Our Covid Inquiry
There are urgent questions to ask – of the government and the public sector. But also of ourselves – the media.
Editor’s Voicemail
James Harding dials in
Parliaments not plutocrats
The parameters of truth and free speech should not be set by self-interested social media platforms. It’s time the lawmakers stepped in
The upper house stoops lower
Offering a peerage to Peter Cruddas doesn’t just make a mockery of the House of Lords – it’s indicative of Boris Johnson’s entire attitude towards the country he governs
Exposed
Johnson and the British state have failed the test of Covid
What’s missing
2020 has been a year of lost encounters, and lost encounters mean lost stories
My mother’s murder
My Mother’s Murder is an investigation by Paul Caruana Galizia into the life and killing of his mother, the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Voices of Evin
Listen to those who’ve experienced the prison first hand
Former inmates of Iran’s notorious Evin prison tell their stories.
This report contains descriptions of torture, rape and execution.
