VICE News Reports

Today we are sharing an episode from one of our newest series -- A Show About Animals. This season, we tell the strange and wonderful story of the wildly famous Koko the “talking” Gorilla. In the early 1970s, a grad student named Penny Patterson set out to investigate a big question: is language unique to humans? So she begins an ambitious experiment -- with the help of a young gorilla named Koko. Pretty soon, Penny says Koko is learning sign language. But, of course, that’s not the whole story. 

You can listen to our weekly series, A Show About Animals, in all the places you get your podcasts. 

A Show About Animals is hosted and reported by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Julia Nutter and Pete Lang-Stanton. Our associate producer is Leily Rezvani. Sound design and original score by Pran Bandi, with additional support from Steve Bone. 

Annie Aviles is our executive editor. Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. 

Special thanks to Maximo Anderson for fact-checking.

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

After an emotional break up, our producer Sam Eagan discovers that his circle of friends has pretty much disappeared. Eager to prevent another weekend from going by with no plans, Sam sets out to find a best friend. 

In this episode, Sam and fellow producer Sophie Kazis answer the question that many of us fail to think about until we reach adulthood: how the hell do you make friends as a grown-up? And along the way, Sam begins to question what his approach to making friends actually reveals about himself. 

This episode was produced by Sophie Kazis and Sam Eagan.

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi, Natasha Jacobs and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio.

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

Recently, in Ireland, a video emerged of an elderly COVID patient caught in the middle of a tug of war between a man coaxing him to leave the hospital, and a doctor pleading with him to stay. The video was the latest surfacing of the Sovereign Citizen movement’s force outside the U.S. VICE News’ David Gilbert reports on how Sovereign Citizen plus local anti-vax movements equals deadly consequences.

This episode was hosted by Jen Kinney, and produced by Adreanna Rodriguez and Ashley Cleek, with reporting by David Gilbert.

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi, Natasha Jacobs and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio.

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

Back in May of 2020, a few ex-Green Berets and about 60 Venezuelans tried to overthrow the government of President Nicolas Maduro. The plan was a mess from the beginning, and it ended in a spectacular failure. VICE News reporter Ben Makuch and producer Miguel Fernández Flores investigate who was behind the plan and how it ended so disastrously. 

10.25.2022: This episode was reuploaded to include comment that we received from Jordan Goudreau’s lawyer following publication. 

This episode was reported and produced by Ben Makuch and Miguel Fernández Flores with Ashley Cleek.

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi, Natasha Jacobs and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio. 

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

This month, South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma may finally go to trial after decades of alleged corruption. For South Africans this trial is divisive. Zuma’s supporters say it's all a campaign to destroy the legacy of a great Black liberator. His critics maintain a conviction could indicate a new day for those seeking to curb corruption. The recent unrest this summer also looms in South Africa's mind, and so regardless of the outcome people worry could there be more violence?  

VICE News Reports spoke to freelance journalist Ntshepeng Mtoma in Johannesburg, to explain what this case could mean for South Africa’s future. This episode was produced by Steph Brown. 

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi, Natasha Jacobs and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio. 

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

Nigeria continues to grapple with a kidnapping crisis. Thousands have been abducted over the past decade, making kidnapping for ransom an underground economy. At the center of all of this is Ummi Kalthum, just 25 years old, who negotiates directly with Boko Haram, delivering ransoms for terrified families.

But paying ransom is deeply controversial, since it funds the same terrorists who are kidnapping in the first place. In this episode, correspondent Chika Oduah follows Ummi as she attempts to negotiate the release of hostages, while at the same time the Nigerian government considers a bill that would make her work illegal.

For more watch VICE News video reported and produced by Chika Oduah, Joe Hill and Roberto Daza. 

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

Our host Arielle Duhaime-Ross recently learned that their cousin had been baptizing dead family members into the Mormon Church — and Arielle might be next. This controversial practice is called “baptism by proxy” or “baptism for the dead,” For people who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it’s a way to get dead family members who weren’t Mormon before their death into the Kingdom of Heaven. But Arielle, who is an atheist, doesn’t want admission into Mormon heaven -- so they contacted their cousin to talk it through.

This episode was reported by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jen Kinney and Steph Brown. 

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi, Natasha Jacobs and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio.

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

Decades of mining has taken a toll on Jamaica’s land and people. Now, the government wants to move mining operations into the most ecologically sensitive part of the island: Cockpit Country. It’s the ancestral home of the Maroons, the descendants of indigenous people and formerly enslaved Africans who joined together to fight British colonizers. But the people who live in Cockpit Country are resisting. 

Alzo Slade takes us to Cockpit Country, where residents say they will not allow mining on this sacred land. 

This episode was produced by Jen Kinney. Special thanks to Eric Weinrib, Andrea Davis and Patricio Matos who produced and reported a version of this story for VICE News. You can watch their film at Vice.com, or on Youtube. 

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio. 

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

An audio portrait of one weekend across planet Earth. Experience the last weekend in July through the eyes of young people from around the world: a rodeo cowgirl, a South Korean soldier, a group of rappers in Kabul seeking refuge in their studio, a British radio host, and many others. Welcome to Weekend World. 

This episode was produced by Sayre Quevedo and Sophie Kazis.

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio.

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

This week marks twenty years since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Two decades later, 9/11 is less of a day and more of an era -- an event that catalyzed countless effects, reverberating beyond the weeks, months and years that followed. For Muslim Americans that is perhaps distinctly true. After the attacks, religious, racial and ethnic profiling of these communities became so widespread that it fundamentally changed what it meant to be Muslim in America. On this episode, we hear directly from a Brooklyn native whose life dramatically changed, when as a teenager, he was surveilled by a unit of the New York City Police Department. 

Sophie Kazis reported and produced this story with help from Leily Rezvani.

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi and Kyle Murdock. Our intern is Leily Rezvani.

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio.

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