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 10: The Rise of Fox News

How a cable news channel became a cultural and political force—and how a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it.


Season 9: Gays Against Briggs

A nationwide moral panic, a California legislator who rode the anti-gay wave, and the LGBTQ+ people who stepped up and came out to try and stop him.


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
51
The L.A. Riots | Plus: Watching the L.A. Riots ...
Journalist Zoey Tur describes watching what happened on April 29, 1992, from her news helicopter above the city.
38 min
52
The L.A. Riots | 6. No Peace
After the verdicts, Los Angeles erupted into fire and chaos.
39 min
53
The L.A. Riots | Plus: Defending the “Most Hate...
More on the trial of the police officers charged with Rodney King’s beating.
31 min
54
The L.A. Riots | 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
55
The L.A. Riots | Plus: How Things Changed for R...
More about King’s upbringing in L.A. and what happened in the aftermath of the beating.
41 min
56
The L.A. Riots | 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
57
The L.A. Riots | Plus: 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
58
The L.A. Riots | 3. The Chief
In the aftermath of the Rodney King beating, the city wanted Daryl Gates out. Gates had other plans.
43 min
59
The L.A. Riots | Plus: "The Fuse Was Already Bu...
More on the cultural tensions building in Los Angeles by the time Latasha Harlins was killed in 1991.
46 min
60
The L.A. Riots | 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
61
The L.A. Riots | Plus: The Man Behind the Camera
More from Slow Burn’s interview with George Holliday, who captured Rodney King’s 1991 beating.
42 min
62
The L.A. Riots | 1. The Tape
In 1991, a 68-second video set off a chain of events that would change Los Angeles forever.
38 min
63
Season 6 Trailer: The L.A. Riots
Coming November 3rd
2 min
64
The Road to the Iraq War | Plus: From the Iraqi...
What the American invasion was like for those who had lived under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
47 min
65
The Road to the Iraq War | 8. Shock and Awe
Who’s most responsible for the failures of post-war Iraq?
40 min
66
The Road to the Iraq War | Plus: Where the Medi...
On Judith Miller’s mistakes in covering Iraq, plus Dan Rather on media patriotism and Eli Pariser on the anti-war movement.
38 min
67
The Road to the Iraq War | 7. Judy
Judith Miller made the WMDs case in the New York Times. Does she still stand by her reporting?
45 min
68
The Road to the Iraq War | Plus: The “Little Gu...
What went on inside government agencies as the Bush administration strived to make the case for war.
38 min
69
The Road to the Iraq War | 6. Big, if True
Why the U.S. relied on faulty intelligence from a man code-named Curveball.
39 min
70
The Road to the Iraq War | Plus: The Politics o...
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
71
The Road to the Iraq War | 5. Four Dicks (and V...
The men named Richard who helped determine whether the U.S. would go to war in Iraq.
43 min
72
The Road to the Iraq War | Plus: How the Iraq W...
And looking back at Slate’s own history with the topic.
69 min
73
The Road to the Iraq War | 4. Fighting Words
Intellectuals on the right and left found themselves on the same side in the debate over Iraq.
43 min
74
The Road to the Iraq War | Plus: Selling the Wa...
What it was like to produce interviews with guests like Dick Cheney and Bush administration officials.
38 min
75
The Road to the Iraq War | 3. Mushroom Clouds
How weapons of mass destruction became the Bush administration’s rallying cry for war.
41 min