Slow Burn: Plus

Slow Burn illuminates America’s most consequential moments, making sense of the past to better understand the present. Through archival tape and first-person interviews, the award-winning series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time.


Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas

Where Clarence Thomas came from, how he rose to power, and how he’s brought the rest of us along with him, whether we like it or not. Winner of the Podcast of the Year at the 2024 Ambies Awards.


Season 7: Roe v. Wade

The women who fought for legal abortion, the activists who pushed back, and the justices who thought they could solve the issue for good. Winner of Apple Podcasts Show of the Year in 2022.


Season 6: The L.A. Riots

How decades of police brutality, a broken justice system, and a video tape set off six days of unrest in Los Angeles.


Season 5: The Road to the Iraq War

Eighteen months after 9/11, the United States invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. Who’s to blame? And was there any way to stop it?


Season 4: David Duke

America’s most famous white supremacist came within a runoff of controlling Louisiana. How did David Duke rise to power? And what did it take to stop him?


Season 3: Biggie and Tupac

How is it that two of the most famous performers in the world were murdered within a year of each other—and their killings were never solved?


Season 2: The Clinton Impeachment

A reexamination of the scandals that nearly destroyed the 42nd president and forever changed the life of a former White House intern.


Season 1: Watergate

What did it feel like to live through the scandal that brought down President Nixon?

History
Documentary
Politics
26
The L.A. Riots | 8. Damages
How Rodney King and the city of Los Angeles tried to reckon with everything they’d suffered.
47 min
27
The L.A. Riots | 7. “It’s Like the Whole City I...
More on what happened after the first day of the riots.
45 min
28
S6 Ep. 7: Into Ashes
April 30 felt like the calm after the storm. Then the fires started burning again.
37 min
29
S6 Plus Ep. 6: Watching the L.A. Riots Erupt
Journalist Zoey Tur describes watching what happened on April 29, 1992, from her news helicopter above the city.
38 min
30
S6 Ep. 6: No Peace
After the verdicts, Los Angeles erupted into fire and chaos.
39 min
31
S6 Plus Ep. 5: Defending the “Most Hated Men in...
More on the trial of the police officers charged with Rodney King’s beating.
31 min
32
6S6 Ep. 5: The System
The officers who beat Rodney King had been caught in the act. Why wasn’t that enough to secure a conviction?
39 min
33
S6 Plus Ep. 4: How Things Changed for Rodney King
More about King’s upbringing in L.A. and what happened in the aftermath of the beating.
41 min
34
S6 Ep. 4: Glen
Rodney King woke up in a prison hospital to find himself at the center of the biggest story in the world.
32 min
35
S6 Plus Ep. 3: Daryl Gates' L.A.
More on the police chief’s influence on the LAPD and its racist, violent policies in the early 1990s, and his clash with L.A. mayor Tom Bradley.
41 min
36
S6 Ep. 3: The Chief
In the aftermath of the Rodney King beating, the city wanted Daryl Gates out. Gates had other plans.
43 min
37
S6 Plus Ep. 2: "The Fuse Was Already Burning"
More on the cultural tensions building in Los Angeles by the time Latasha Harlins was killed in 1991.
46 min
38
S6 Ep. 2: No Justice
With the beating of Rodney King still on America’s TV screens, the killing of a teenager in South Central further inflamed the tension in Los Angeles’ Black neighborhoods.
44 min
39
S6 Plus Ep. 1: The Man Behind the Camera
More from Slow Burn’s interview with George Holliday, who captured Rodney King’s 1991 beating.
42 min
40
S6 Ep. 1: The Tape
In 1991, a 68-second video set off a chain of events that would change Los Angeles forever.
38 min
41
Season 6 Trailer
Coming November 3rd
2 min
42
S5 Plus Ep. 8: From the Iraqi Perspective
What the American invasion was like for those who had lived under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
47 min
43
S5 Ep. 8: Shock and Awe
Who’s most responsible for the failures of post-war Iraq?
40 min
44
S5 Plus Ep. 7: Where the Media Failed
On Judith Miller’s mistakes in covering Iraq, plus Dan Rather on media patriotism and Eli Pariser on the anti-war movement.
38 min
45
S5 Ep. 7: Judy
Judith Miller made the WMDs case in the New York Times. Does she still stand by her reporting?
45 min
46
S5 Plus Ep. 6: The “Little Guys” Who Didn’t See...
What went on inside government agencies as the Bush administration strived to make the case for war.
38 min
47
S5 Ep.6: Big, if True
Why the U.S. relied on faulty intelligence from a man code-named Curveball.
39 min
48
S5 Plus Ep. 5: The Politics of the Iraq Resolut...
What made members of Congress vote the way they did on Iraq, and how those votes continue to follow some of them today.
36 min
49
S5 Ep.5: Four Dicks (and Vice President Cheney)
The men named Richard who helped determine whether the U.S. would go to war in Iraq.
43 min
50
S5 Plus Ep. 4: How the Iraq War Ignited Online ...
And looking back at Slate’s own history with the topic.
69 min