Longform podcasts that I enjoyed sorted by year.
2026
World of secrets: The darkest web: 2026 BBC: Following two special agents finding children of sex abuse and going after their abusers.
The Real Salt Path: The Walkers: The Observer Investigative journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou uncovered that the bestselling memoir The Salt Path by Raynor Winn contains significant fabrications regarding the author’s homelessness and the circumstances of her walk.
Snap Judgement: Fire escape Wondery and KQED’s Snap Studios: A young mother, a midwife,joins the fire force while in prison
Focus: Adults in the Room :KUOW: Seattle, 1999. A teacher is accused of sexual misconduct by students. Adults close ranks. Was a whole school community groomed by a charismatic predator? Or was she part of a whisper campaign that cost the life of a great teacher?
Final thoughts: Jerry Springer: iHeart: About talk show host and politician Jerry Springer
The gift: by the BBC (3 seasons) unexpected results after people took a DNA test for fun
Cult Queen of Canada: CBC :A cult leader calling herself “The Queen of Canada” occupies an abandoned schoo in a small town in Canadal. Neighbours turn on each other, a retired teacher leads the resistance in a story about what happens when online extremism spills into the real world.
2025
Big Sugar: 2025 Campside Presents: Big Sugar takes you deep inside the secretive, multi-billion dollar sugar industry and the epic court battle of the underpaid workers, and the influence they had on stopping health regulations regarding sugar
Mission K-pop: 2025 USG Audio ( Currently listening to)
A 23-year-old Asian American is traveling from her home in LA to South Korea’o become a K-Pop superstar. Over just three months, journalist Haeryun Kang follows Caty to see if she can overcome these obstacles and reach K-Pop stardom.
Stop Rewind The Lost Boy : Blanchard House / Curiouscast: Story about a kidnapped boy put up for international adoption, finding his way back home
Extreme: Peak Danger: BBC: Eleven climbers died in two disastrous days on K2
2024
The Gas Man: 2024: Tortoise Media: about a dealer of raw materials used to make chemical weapons for dangerous regimes. Still seems to be getting away with it for 30 years. And rather a dark side of TUI is also mentioned.
Transmissions (2 seasons) The definitive story: BBC: Joy Division and New Order
The Blind Spot (s3): The plague in the shadows: WNYC, about the early days of the AIDS epidemic
The Kill List: Wondery: On the darkweb people are putting out kill orders on a website. The website is a scam but the people wanting someone dead are real.
Who Killed The Videostar: iHeart: Rise and fall of MTV
World of Secrets: Looking for Mr Fox: BBC: Two Brazilian guys are crossing the transatlantic ocean. But before they can start, police raid their boat looking for drugs.
Extreme: Muscle men BBC about the rise of the body building and fitness & anabolics industry in the 80’s and 99’s
The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam: BBC: It starts with a man falling/jumping from a helicopter, and the story behind a gold dig site in Indonesia, and a small town in Canada who happened to have bought a lot of shares in the company
Focus: Lost patients: KUOW & Seatle times: a deeply-reported, six-part docuseries examining the difficulties of treating serious mental illness and how the patients and loved ones try to navigate the system looking for help.
2023
Wilder: On the writer, books and TV series of Little House on the Prairie Laura Ingalls Wilder and the times she and her family lived in, and why these stories are still popular.
Chameleon: Lost Boys : 2023 Chameleon: Campside media: They’d been raised in the British Columbia wilderness, and this was their first-ever contact with society — they’d never seen a TV, gone to school, or registered for IDs. So the community took them in and set about introducing them to the modern world. Before long, the international media descended on the town, enthralled by the mysterious “Bush Boys.”
Think Twice: Michael Jackson: Wondery: Biography of Michael Jackson
The Turning: Room of Mirrors tells the stories of ballerinas who worked with the demanding, brilliant, and often cryptic choreographer George Balanchine,
The Cotton Capital: The Guardian takes a deep dive in its own and Manchester history of cotton industry. Well told and a rare occasion to hear enslaved voices and circumstances of the workers in Manchester.
Hot money : The New Narcos, Financial Times: The story starts with a murder in a small town in the Netherlands ends with international crime syndicates
Gateway: Cocaïne, Murder, & Dirty Money in Europe: BrazenFM: (on partly the same subject as “The New Narcos”
Intrigue: BBC: Burning Sun: Sex Scandal in the K-Pop world
World of Secrets: BBC: The Abercrombie guys
2022
Pressure Cooker: CBC: Two meth heads get pressured in two plan an assault with a pressure cooker
The Blind Spot (s1): WNYC: The Road to 9/11
Wind of Change: Crooked media : investigation in to the role of the CIA trying to promote western culture around the world. And trying to solve the theory if the song Wind of Change by the Scorpions was written by the CIA
2021
Sweet Bobby: 2021 Tortoise Media: A marketer and radio presenter. Online, she’s contacted by a man she vaguely knows called Bobby, and they start chatting she’s reeled in to a scam of epic proportions.
Bad Blood: The Final Chapter: 2021 Tells the story of the rise and fall of the tech founder Elizabeth Holmes. Hosted by John Carreyrou, who broke the story
The Lazarus Heist: 2021 BBC: A must listen to deep dive in a North Korean hacker group
Off the record: David Bowie 2021 iHeart: On the life of David Bowie
The turning: Sisters who left: focussed on a group of women who joined the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s secretive order of nuns—and who then decided to leave.
One click: iHeart: about a dangerous weight-loss drug
2020
Hollywood Con Queen: 2020 Chameleon: Campside media: The story of and hunt for the notorious scam artist known as the Hollywood Con Queen.
2019
Unravel: Snowball: 2019: BBC Sounds: An average family’s encounter with a charismatic Californian con woman costs them everything.
Intrigue: The tunnel 29, a group of people came together to dig a tunnel under the berlin wall
The Missing Crypto Queen: BBC: Dr Ruja Ignatova persuaded millions to join her financial revolution. Then she disappeared. Why? Jamie Bartlett presents a story of greed, deceit and herd madness.
Hunting Warhead: CBC: How do you rescue child abuse victims who could be anywhere in the world?