Fiasco: Benghazi unpacks the 2012 attack in Libya that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens—and the ensuing political storm, which raised questions about America’s role in the world, established a playbook to weaponize attention in the social media age, and ultimately changed the course of U.S. history.

For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this season visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

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Where the law of the land ends, the story begins. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ian Urbina returns with a new season of his riveting podcast anthology, The Outlaw Ocean, which explores the most lawless place on earth — the vast unpoliceable ocean.

In this episode, the Libyan Coast Guard is doing the European Union’s dirty work, capturing migrants as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean into Europe and throwing them in secretive prisons. There, they are extorted, abused and sometimes killed. An investigation into the death of Aliou Candé, a young farmer and father from Gineau-Bisseau, puts the Outlaw Ocean team in the cross-hairs of Libya’s violent and repressive regime. In this stunning three-part series, we take you inside the walls of one of the most dangerous prisons, in a lawless regime where the world’s forgotten migrants languish. More episodes of The Outlaw Ocean are available here: https://link.mgln.ai/oo-fiasco

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Here’s a preview of a new audiobook, Global Tech Wars: China’s Race to Dominate. For decades, China’s economic rise has been symbolized by its unstoppable force of low-cost manufacturing. Now, it’s the leading country in cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, surveillance technology, and more.

In Global Tech Wars, Financial Times’ veteran journalist James Kynge analyzes China’s rapid technological ascent and what it means for the future. If you like what you hear, find the full audiobook at Pushkin, Audible, Spotify, or wherever you get your audiobooks.

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From Leon Neyfakh and Prologue Projects — the award-winning team behind Think Twice: Michael Jackson, Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Backfired — comes a new Audible Original, Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer.

You may think you know Jerry Springer—the iconic TV host who presided over America's most controversial daytime talk show for 27 years. In that time, Springer’s name became synonymous with outrageous guests, taboo confessions, and vicious on-stage fights. But before The Jerry Springer Show made him infamous all over the world, Springer was something else entirely: a respected Midwestern politician whom many saw as a future leader in the Democratic Party. So how did this serious-minded idealist with lofty political aspirations take such a turn in such a radically different direction?

Final Thoughts examines timeless questions about ambition, compromise, and whether we can ever truly separate who we are from what we do for a living. 

Listen now on Audible at audible.com/Springer.

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Introducing a new podcast from WBEZ Chicago, Making: Stories Without End. Soap operas have long been trivialized as low-brow women’s entertainment. Even the term “soap” is pejorative when describing television. But there’s a deeper story to tell about the genre that changed storytelling on the small screen.

In this episode, you’ll hear about Irna Phillips, the Chicago woman who birthed the daytime serial for radio in the 1930s and ushered it onto television in the 1950s. Phillips established staples in the genre like the cliff-hanger; she was a prolific writer who knew the daytime audience wanted to see their own problems in stories. As she summed it up in 1947: “[T]heir own conflicts, their own heartache, their hopes and their own dreams. Everything isn't happiness, is it? No.”

Follow the rest of the season by searching Making: Stories Without End.  

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How George H.W. Bush ended Iran-Contra.

For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this episode visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

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How Hollywood tried to capitalize on Iran-Contra -- and why the story didn’t take.

For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this episode visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

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How the Iran-Contra hearings made Oliver North an icon, and got Ronald Reagan off the hook.

For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this episode visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

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How the Reagan administration tried to prevent the Iran scandal from becoming a second Watergate.

For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this episode visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

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A bonus interview with journalists Martha Honey and Tony Avirgan. Honey and Avirgan tell Leon about their time reporting on the Contra war from the southern front in Costa Rica.

For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this season visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

Subscribe to Pushkin+ to hear the entire season of Fiasco: Iran Contra, ad-free, right now. Find Pushkin+ on the Fiasco show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm.

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