Slow Burn

In Slow Burn’s 10th season, host Josh Levin takes you back to a crucial inflection point in American history: the moment between 2000 and 2004 when Fox News first surged to power and a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it.You’ll hear from the hosts, reporters, and producers who built Fox News, many who’ve never spoken publicly. You’ll also hear from Fox’s biggest antagonists—the political operatives, journalists, and comedians who attacked it, investigated it, and tried to mock it into submission. And you’ll hear from Fox’s victims, who are still coming to terms with how a cable news channel upended their lives.

Want more Slow Burn? Join Slate Plus to immediately access all past seasons and episodes of Slow Burn (and your other favorite Slate podcasts) completely ad-free. Plus, you’ll unlock subscriber-exclusive bonus episodes that bring you behind-the-scenes on the making of the show. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Subscribe” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen.


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
26
Gays Against Briggs | 1. A Hotbed of Homosexuality
In the 1970s, California played host to the biggest gay rights fight the country had ever seen.
45 min
27
Season 9 Trailer: Gays Against Briggs
Coming May 22nd.
1 min
28
Decoder Ring: How the Jalapeño Lost Its Heat
For more than a century, Americans have been obsessed with Mexican food – and changed it.
29 min
29
Decoder Ring: Making Real Music for a Fake Band
The Broadway show ‘Stereophonic’ on how to construct the sound of the ’70s.
37 min
30
Decoder Ring: Can the “Bookazine” Save Magazines?
Why is there a magazine all about Robert Redford in the CVS checkout lane?
33 min
31
Decoder Ring: Andrew Wyeth's Secret Nudes (Encore)
Why did America’s favorite artist hide 240 pieces of artwork from his wife?
50 min
32
Decoder Ring: Why Stylists Rule the Red Carpet
Avery Trufelman and Melissa Rivers on what the fashion police hath wrought.
38 min
33
Decoder Ring: The Gen X Soda That Was Just "OK"
Thirty years ago, OK Soda arrived in select stores and offered up a fizzy irony.
39 min
34
Announcing Slow Burn Season 9
Gays Against Briggs
1 min
35
Decoder Ring: Why Do So Many Coffee Shops Look ...
Algorithms are shaping our world, even down to latte art.
29 min
36
One Year: 1990 | 5. The Angry Death of Kimberly...
A young woman claimed she got HIV from her dentist. Was she right?
52 min
37
One Year: 1990 | 4. Art on Trial
Inside the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition that sparked a First Amendment showdown in Cincinnati.
54 min
38
One Year: 1990 | 3. Bush vs. Broccoli
When the president declared war on a vegetable, the country lost its mind.
36 min
39
One Year: 1990 | 2. Mandrake the Magician
How a single dad with a secret identity took on Big Tobacco.
46 min
40
One Year: 1990 | 1. Pizzastroika
As the Cold War reached its climax, Pizza Hut got tangled up in geopolitics—and made a lot of dough.
53 min
41
Decoder Ring: The Forgotten Video Game About Sl...
In 1992, the company behind The Oregon Trail tried to simulate Black history. It did not go well.
43 min
42
Decoder Ring: The Dating Manual Unlike Any Other
The Rules became a controversial bestseller and sparked instant debate. But was the advice any good?
33 min
43
Decoder Ring: Mailbag - The Recorder, Limos, an...
We answer your questions about the ubiquitous musical instrument, ‘80s automotive luxury, and more.
36 min
44
Decoder Ring: When Art Pranksters Invaded Melro...
In the mid-1990s, an artist collective smuggled its provocative work onto the set of the hit TV show.
37 min
45
Decoder Ring: The Fast Decline of the Slow Dance
The rise and fall of an awkward rite of passage.
41 min
46
One Year: 1955 | 6. The Hiroshima Maidens
A decade after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb, 25 Japanese women put their lives in the hands of American surgeons.
50 min
47
One Year: 1955 | 5. The Cutter Incident
In 1955, the polio vaccine was rightly heralded as a miracle. A medical mystery threatened to derail it.
32 min
48
One Year: 1955 | 4. Siberia, USA
The Communist-hunting housewives who spawned a far-right conspiracy theory about an American gulag.
51 min
49
One Year: 1955 | 3. The Weather Girls
In the 1950s, women weathercasters were idolized and lusted over. They were also seen as a major threat.
41 min
50
One Year: 1955 | 2. The Crockett Craze
How Walt Disney created the first baby-boom phenomenon totally by accident.
53 min