Slow Burn – Details, episodes & analysis
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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 series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time.
Want more Slow Burn? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to Slow Burn and your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slow Burn show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen.
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?
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🇨🇦 Canada - history
04/06/2026#91🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
04/06/2026#83🇺🇸 USA - history
04/06/2026#24🇨🇦 Canada - history
03/06/2026#67🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
03/06/2026#80🇩🇪 Germany - history
03/06/2026#98🇺🇸 USA - history
03/06/2026#25🇨🇦 Canada - history
02/06/2026#54🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
02/06/2026#70🇺🇸 USA - history
02/06/2026#30
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- https://slate.trib.al/ucMyTst
19 shares
- http://y2u.be/D8cLqWAffJ8
9 shares
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Score global : 59%
Publication history
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Episodes published by month in
Decoder Ring: Chuck E. Cheese Pizza War (Encore)
mercredi 28 août 2024 • Duration 47:42
In the late 1970s, a new and unusual concept for a restaurant chain emerged in California—video games plus bad pizza plus animatronic characters. The result was Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre, an immensely popular chain with a pizza rat for a mascot. But the strangeness only starts there. Decoder Ring dives into the formation of Chuck E. Cheese’s and its rival, ShowBiz Pizza Place; the conflict between the two; and the odd personalities of the mechanical animatronics that inhabited both stores and are still beloved by a select group of adults to this very day.
This podcast was written by Willa Paskin and was produced and edited by Benjamin Frisch, who also did illustrations for this episode. Cleo Levin was our research assistant.
Decoder Ring is produced by Katie Shepherd, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, with help from Sofie Kodner. Derek John is executive producer. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director.
If you haven’t yet, please subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.
If you’re a fan of the show, we’d love for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. You also get unlimited access to Slate’s website. Member support is crucial to our work. So please go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today.
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Decoder Ring: The Hysteria Over Mass Hysteria
mercredi 14 août 2024 • Duration 37:42
“Hysteria” is an ancient word carrying thousands of years of baggage. Though the terminology has changed, hysteria has not gone away, and in its most baffling instances it can even be contagious. The idea of a mass psychogenic illness can be hard to wrap your head around. A group of people begins experiencing physical symptoms, because of something that started in one of their minds? In today’s episode Dan Taberski, the host of Hysterical, a new podcast about mass hysteria, walks us through the past and present of this phenomenon, why it’s so stigmatized, and why it shouldn’t be.
This episode was written by Evan Chung and Willa Paskin and produced by Evan. We produce Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman and with help from Sofie Kodner. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Marialexa Kavanaugh and Alexandra Anderson.
If you haven’t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.
If you’re a fan of the show, we’d love for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. You also get unlimited access to Slate’s website. Member support is crucial to our work. So please go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today.
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Gays Against Briggs | 3. Harvey Milk vs. the Machine
Season 9 · Episode 3
mercredi 5 juin 2024 • Duration 57:14
After decades of wandering and job-hopping, Harvey Milk found his purpose as a gay community leader with growing political ambitions. But his historic election was just the beginning. As John Briggs’ gay teacher ban gained momentum, it was up to Supervisor Milk and his allies to figure out how to stop him.
Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock all episodes of Slow Burn: Gays Against Briggs. Your subscription also gets you ad-free access to all your favorite Slate podcasts, plus other member exclusive content. Join 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 of Slow Burn was written and produced by Christina Cauterucci. Slow Burn is produced by Joel Meyer, Sophie Summergrad, and Kelly Jones.
Josh Levin is the editorial director of Slow Burn.
Derek John is Slate’s executive producer of narrative podcasts.
Susan Matthews is Slate’s executive editor.
Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director. We had engineering help from Patrick Fort and Madeline Ducharme.
Our theme music is composed by Alexis Cuadrado. Artwork by Ivylise Simones, based on an image of Silvana Nova and a poster designed by Larry Hermsen and the Too Much Graphics Collective.
Join host Christina Cauterucci and special guests as they record a special, live episode of Slow Burn at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 13.
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One Year: Elvis, the Pledge, and Extraterrestrials
jeudi 5 août 2021 • Duration 57:54
Three stories from one day in August 1977. Elvis Presley dies, and the National Enquirer goes after the ultimate tabloid scoop: a photo of the King in his coffin. A New Jersey high schooler becomes a pariah when she refuses to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Astronomers in Ohio get a mysterious signal from outer space—could it be a message from aliens?
One Year is produced by Josh Levin, Evan Chung, and Madeline Ducharme. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.
To support this show, subscribe to One Year on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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One Year: The Miracle Cure
lundi 2 août 2021 • Duration 01:00:14
Medical authorities said that Laetrile was dangerous quackery. It became a sensation anyway. Diana Green saw this drug made from apricot pits as her son Chad’s best chance to survive leukemia. Her shocking actions, and the little boy affected by them, became the focus of a heated national debate over freedom of medical choice.
One Year is produced by Josh Levin, Evan Chung, and Madeline Ducharme. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.
To support this show, subscribe to One Year on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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One Year: Mary Shane's Rookie Season
jeudi 29 juillet 2021 • Duration 52:32
Mary Shane made history with the Chicago White Sox, becoming the first woman hired as a legitimate major-league baseball announcer. But in 1977, she had to fight to be taken seriously in one of America’s most sexist industries.
One Year is produced by Josh Levin, Evan Chung, and Madeline Ducharme. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.
To support this show, subscribe to One Year on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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Decoder Ring: The Sign Painter
jeudi 22 juillet 2021 • Duration 01:02:06
Decoder Ring is Slate's show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit, examines its history, and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.
This episode introduces you to Ilona Granet, who was a New York art-scene fixture who won the praise of the art world when she put up anti-harassment street signs in lower Manhattan in the mid- 1980s. Her career seemed like a sure thing, but three decades on, and so much more art later, it still hasn’t materialized, even as her contemporaries are now hanging in museums. This episode is not about the familiar myth of making it, but the mystery of not making it. What happens, to an artist—to anyone—when they’re good enough, but that’s not enough?
If you like the show, subscribe to Decoder Ring on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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One Year: Anita Bryant's War on Gay Rights
vendredi 9 juillet 2021 • Duration 01:05:53
Slate's new podcast One Year and will introduce you to people and ideas that changed American history--one year at a time. The show is hosted by Josh Levin, Slate's national editor and host of Slow Burn Season 4. And our first season covers 1977: a year when gay rights hung in the balance, Roots dominated the airwaves, and Jesus appeared on a tortilla.
In this show, we’ll focus on key moments that transformed politics, culture, science, religion, and more. This episode you’re about to hear will take you into a courtroom in Miami, Florida, where a local fight over gay rights was about to become a huge national standoff, one with life-altering stakes for millions of Americans. And at the center of it all was a pop singer and orange juice spokesperson named Anita Bryant.
How does the nation’s past shape our present? Subscribe to One Year on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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The Road to the Iraq War | 8. Shock and Awe
Season 5 · Episode 8
mercredi 16 juin 2021 • Duration 10:54
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive Slow Burn episodes, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen.
The Bush administration didn’t just fail to plan for post-war Iraq. Before and during the invasion, they made choices that compounded the mistake of going to war. Those decisions had lasting consequences for the world and for the Iraqi people. Who’s most responsible for that tragedy?
Season 5 of Slow Burn is produced by Noreen Malone, Jayson De Leon, and Sophie Summergrad. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.
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The Road to the Iraq War | 7. Judy
Season 5 · Episode 7
mercredi 9 juin 2021 • Duration 06:47
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive Slow Burn episodes, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen.
In the months before the invasion of Iraq, the media mostly backed the Bush administration’s narrative about weapons of mass destruction. No reporter was more influential on that beat than the New York Times' Judith Miller.
How did she get the story so wrong—and why was she the only person to take the fall?
Season 5 of Slow Burn is produced by Noreen Malone, Jayson De Leon, and Sophie Summergrad. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.
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