The Slow Newscast
The Slow Newscast from The Observer takes the news slowly. We investigate, and every week we focus on stories that really matter in the UK and around the world. From wars in Ukraine and Gaza through to true crime and injustice and real life mysteries, The Slow Newscast team is devoted to narrative investigations covering some of the biggest topics of the day.
Who are the people biohacking themselves in a quest for immortality? Or the man taking on an entire nation in the high seas to protect whales? And what happened when humanity's most distant messenger fell silent? From a newsroom with a different approach to journalism these are the stories we tell.
To find out more about The Observer:
Subscribe to TheObserver+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content
Head to our website observer.co.uk
Download the Tortoise app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists
If you want to get in touch with us directly about a story, or tell us more about the stories you want to hear about contact [email protected]
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- Update frequency
- every 5 days
- Average duration
- 38 minutes
- Episodes
- 353
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
The sick man: Boris Johnson, Britain and the virus
Boris Johnson could have died from coronavirus. He recovered, but the costs to the country of his illness were huge. Government was paralysed without him and vital decisions weren't taken. How did th…
00:51:29 |
Thu 18 Jun 2020
Black Lives Matter 2020
The protests on the streets of the United States and around the world have taken the authorities by surprise. But they haven't sprung from nowhere; they've sprung from attitudes and events dating bac…
00:32:02 |
Thu 11 Jun 2020
Inside Amazon: a superpower in a pandemic
Amazon is a true economic superpower; a company of a scale and kind we haven't seen before. It's relentless in its pursuit of efficiency on behalf of its customers, but what does it believe in? How d…
00:32:35 |
Thu 04 Jun 2020
What if they don't turn up?
It's not just the hopes of young people which depend on them going to university, whole towns and cities rely on them too. The British government estimated that education would be worth £23bn to the …
00:24:22 |
Thu 28 May 2020
Cash and caring: the business of care homes
No part of British society has been harder hit by the coronavirus pandemic than care homes. 15,000 people have died there. Why were they uniquely vulnerable? Partly because they housed vulnerable peo…
00:27:45 |
Thu 21 May 2020
The jobs tightrope
When coronavirus struck and the UK locked down, the government began paying the wages of furloughed workers. It's a hugely expensive policy. There are risks in continuing it but the risks of stopping…
00:27:15 |
Thu 14 May 2020
Undercrowded and overfunded: the Nightingale hospitals
The Nightingale hospitals - huge intensive care hospitals built in a matter of days to deal with the overspill if regular hospitals couldn't cope with the numbers of coronavirus patients - are sittin…
00:28:58 |
Thu 07 May 2020
Coronavirus in Africa: the final straw?
Claude Jibidar is country director for the World Food Programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo - a huge country beset with vast problems, not just food shortages but armed conflict and ebola as …
00:25:40 |
Thu 30 Apr 2020
No weddings and fourteen funerals
Jan Gould is the vicar for the Church in Wales in the parish of Glen Ely in Cardiff. It's a poor neighbourhood and the church is still an important part of the community. In normal times, there's a n…
00:28:41 |
Thu 23 Apr 2020
Covid-19: The 5G conspiracy
This week on the slow news podcast, we’re looking at the messy conspiracy theory of 5G and Covid-19. What has been going on? And why are these ideas spreading? We’ve had the investigative reporter Ja…
00:28:00 |
Thu 16 Apr 2020
The zoo-keeper: surviving coronavirus
The coronavirus lockdown is not just a difficult time for business, it's an emotional time. How to survive as a going concern? How to treat workers fairly? And, if your business is running a zoo, how…
00:29:09 |
Thu 09 Apr 2020
Coronaviolence: domestic abuse in a lockdown
One of the unavoidable consequences of the coronavirus lockdown is that it traps women and children with their abusers. And for women seeking to escape, the routes out may be closed. Even making a ph…
00:25:50 |
Thu 02 Apr 2020
Lives on the line: why is coronavirus killing so many health workers?
In some countries where the coronavirus has hit hard - Italy or Spain - health workers account for up to 20% of people infected, and the death toll among them is mounting. The front line of health ha…
00:32:24 |
Thu 26 Mar 2020
How pandemics end
Pandemics are part of life. They've caused millions of deaths over the centuries but, in the end, the lesson of history is that, just like the Black Death, smallpox, cholera and many others, this pan…
00:30:01 |
Thu 19 Mar 2020
The rules: can we fix our broken politics?
UK politics has torn itself apart over Brexit. Parliament, the prime minister, 'the people' and the courts have been at each others' throats, and old conventions governing the way the system works ha…
00:24:41 |
Thu 12 Mar 2020
A college with secrets
Trinity Hall is a small Cambridge college - one of the 30+ which make up the university. After an investigation over several months, Tortoise has brought to light a number of allegations of sexual im…
00:33:24 |
Thu 05 Mar 2020
My mother's murder - episode 4: The last domino
Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered …
00:33:04 |
Thu 27 Feb 2020
My mother's murder - episode 3: Truth to power
Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered …
00:33:15 |
Thu 20 Feb 2020
My mother's murder - episode 2: An assassination foretold
Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered …
00:39:28 |
Thu 13 Feb 2020
My mother's murder - episode 1
Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered …
00:31:54 |
Mon 10 Feb 2020
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