The Slow Newscast

By The ObserverSociety & Culture Documentary News News Commentary

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The Slow Newscast episodes

June 04, 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 does it see its place in the world? Tortoise is investigating the big tech companies as rigorously as if they were countries. What sort of country has Jeff Bezos created?
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33 min
May 28, 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 UK economy this year. If coronavirus keeps students away, universities, shops, landlords, pubs and clubs will all be poorer. In some places, it could be a devastating blow.
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25 min
May 21, 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 people; partly because the financial structures that lie behind them left them open to a disaster of this kind.
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28 min
May 14, 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 may be even greater.
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28 min
May 07, 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 sitting empty. It's good news, but what does it tell us about the way the British government has handled this pandemic?
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29 min
April 30, 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 well. As the coronavirus hits, this fragile state will struggle to cope. Many of Claude's colleagues have left, fearful of contracting cover-19 in a place with such poor healthcare. But Claude has chosen to stay.
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26 min
April 23, 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 natural balance between births, deaths and marriages. But the coronavirus has disrupted that balance. These days, Jan is dealing with a sea of funerals and coping with the restrictions of lockdown that make the job of a parish priest more difficult.

We mention Befrienders, an organisation of volunteers who work to prevent suicide. You can find them at https://www.befrienders.org/directory
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29 min
April 16, 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 James Ball looking for answers.
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28 min
April 09, 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 to think about the welfare of animals as well as humans? Twycross Zoo in the UK is celebrated for its role in animal conservation. But that won't protect it from some very difficult decisions ahead.
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30 min
April 02, 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 phone call for help may be impossible. Basia Cummings has been talking to people trying to help victims of domestic abuse in unimaginably difficult circumstances.
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26 min

About The Slow Newscast

From the publisher's feed

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…