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Tortoise Media


The Slow Newscast from Tortoise takes the news slowly. We investigate, and every week we focus on stories that really matter in the UK and around the world. From the war in Ukraine, the downfall of Boris Johnson, to true crime and injustice and real life mysteries, The Slow Newscast team is devoted to narrative investigations. From a startup newsroom with a different approach to journalism.


For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app.


For early and ad-free access, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts.


If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.





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The Slow Newscast

The fall of Assad in Syria is a disaster for Iran, so much so that people are beginning to ask if this might finally be the moment when Iran’s pro-democracy movement breaks through. This is the story of one activist’s 25 year fight against the Islamic regime in Iran, a story of courage and despair.

Reporter: Ceri Thomas

Producer: Katie Gunning

Sound design: Dominic Delargy

Artwork: Jon Hill

Show's Executive Producer: Matt Russell

To find out more about Tortoise:

Download the Tortoise app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists

Subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content

Become a member and get access to all of Tortoise's premium audio offerings and more

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Killing hope: Iran's mind wars

The tech millionaire Bryan Johnson once went viral for infusing himself with a litre of his 17-year-old son’s blood plasma. That experiment failed, but it hasn’t distracted him from his life’s mission: reversing ageing. 

Now, the self-declared professional guinea pig has travelled to a libertarian free zone on a remote Caribbean island, to receive experimental gene therapy administered by a company called Minicircle. 

In the crypto city of Próspera, Roatán, the Honduran government grants Minicircle regulatory freedom for medical experiments that are banned by the FDA in the US.

This is the story of biohacking… on steroids. What happens when you build a privately run, for-profit nation state? And what happens when that state becomes a playground for experimental medicine?

To find out more about Tortoise:

Download the Tortoise app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists

Subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content

Become a member and get access to all of Tortoise's premium audio offerings and more

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The immortality bros: The business of living forever

David Bowie's last months were spent fulfilling one final ambition: staging a musical based around his songs. They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes. Zelda Perkins not only met hers, she produced the musical he staged in his dying days

To find out more about Tortoise:

Download the Tortoise app - for a listening experience curated by our journalists

Subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content

Become a member and get access to all of Tortoise's premium audio offerings and more

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 hello@tortoisemedia.com

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The final bow: David Bowie's last act

British politics is undergoing a fundamental shift. Traditionally, economics has been the key to who wins elections but in recent years - and turbocharged by Brexit - identity has come to the fore. The implications are enormous. Political parties are reshaping and their economic policies are being transformed. 

Tortoise editors Basia Cummings and Ceri Thomas explore what this could mean in this election and in decades to come. 

Guests in Edition #1 are John Aitken, Glasgow youth worker, Andrew (Lord) Cooper, former Director of Strategy to David Cameron, and Tortoise editors Chris Cook and Matthew d’Ancona.

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It’s Your Identity, Stupid

In this election, the Conservatives are betting on youth to win the social media campaign. The kids running their digital strategy don’t know what a 30th birthday is like but they’re aggressively in charge. And, for better or worse, they’re changing the game.

Tortoise editors Basia Cummings and Ceri Thomas get inside the digital campaign with help from fellow editors Alexi Mostrous, Polly Curtis and Matt D’Ancona.

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Techno Tories

It’s easy to conclude that Prince Andrew shouldn't have agreed to give an interview to the BBC, but it’s more interesting to ask why he thought it was a good idea.

Three Tortoise editors – James Harding, Basia Cummings and Ceri Thomas – have spent this week asking that question, talking to people in and around Buckingham Palace, and re-examining the Jeffrey Epstein case.

In this week’s Tortoise podcast: how fears about a slimmed-down monarchy and financial independence led to a terrible misjudgement.

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The PRince disaster

The murder of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia denied Malta its best hope of beating endemic corruption and bribery. Her family have fought ever since for her legacy and for justice. This week events have taken dramatic turns, with arrests and the resignation of government ministers. Daphne’s son Paul, a reporter at Tortoise, has been at the heart of it all.

Join Tortoise for only £50. Use code POD50 at tortoisemedia.com/friend

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Murder in Malta

To find out more about Tortoise go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code POD50 to become a member for just £1 a week, half our normal price.

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Nameless, stateless: N3

Since the general election was called, one of Britain's foremost political journalists has been tracking the Labour campaign for Tortoise. Here's his story of tension and bad choices inside the party machine.

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Labour: anatomy of a catastrophe

For months, Tortoise has been investigating big tech companies as if they were countries: holding them to the same standards that we apply to nation states; caring about what they think; understanding what they're planning to do; figuring out who's in charge now, and who might be next.

It's been a huge reporting project. In this week's podcast, Basia Cummings talks to two of the Tortoise editors behind it, Alexi Mostrous and James Harding.

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Labour: anatomy of a catastrophe

Labour: anatomy of a catastrophe

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