Almost every morning, when I do my hour-long walk, the voices of journalists, thinkers, TV hosts, academics, politicians, and celebrities keep me company. They’re on my headphones, as if they’re talking to me and we’re having an intimate conversation.
For this newsletter, the last of 2024, I would like to share my go-to podcasts when I want to understand what’s happening in some parts of the world.
News and news analysis are my usual top subjects so I tune in to either The Economist or BBC World Service podcasts. The thing is, you have to be a subscriber to be able to listen to The Economist podcasts. They charge a hefty fee, which includes print and online editions, webinars, and podcasts. When I pay up every year, I feel my stomach doing cartwheels. To make me feel better, I liken it to a year-long membership in a gym — of the mind.
The rest of the podcasts on this list, which are on Spotify, are accessible to all.
So, here goes.
1. Drum Tower (Economist)
Hosted by David Rennie, the magazine’s former China bureau chief who is now its geopolitics editor, and Alice Su, the China senior correspondent based in Taipei, Drum Tower delves into various facets of China — this vast and important country — including geopolitics, culture, social issues, and the economy. Rennie and Su are very well-informed; they take listeners to their travels in China and elsewhere — like when Su followed Chinese families who migrated to the US via Latin America — and tell their stories really well. What’s valuable is this: we hear the voices of ordinary Chinese, their views and aspirations, translated, of course, by the hosts.
2. The Intelligence (Economist)
This features The Economist’s worldwide network of correspondents who make sense of the news. They also call our attention to stories that don’t necessarily make the headlines. The co-host, Jason Palmer, has a velvety voice, so soothing that listeners do not get ruffled by subjects such as violent conflict and political infighting.
3. Global News Podcast (BBC World Service)
A daily update on the world’s top stories. This podcast does a good job for those who want to know the day’s world headlines. I prefer this to US networks, which tend to be US-centric.
4. The Global Story (BBC World Service)
Here, a single story is told in-depth by BBC journalists. In the episode “The final hours of the Assad regime,” a BBC reporter who crossed the border from Lebanon was the first Western journalist to report on Damascus. It was as if I was there with her as she described the joy and jubilation after Bashar al-Assad fled. The episode “Democracy in crisis in South Korea” was highly informative, combined with reporting on the atmosphere in Seoul.
5. Amanpour (CNN)
Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief global correspondent, does a wide range of interviews on foreign affairs. I like the way Amanpour interviews because she interrupts the resource persons only when she needs to clarify a point and elicit more information, allowing them to explain complicated issues. She listens to her interviewees and doesn’t pass judgment on them.
6. The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim (Sky News)
This is a new weekly podcast hosted by journalists who have been covering hotspots in the world — and they are terrific. Engel of NBC and Hakim of Sky News teamed up to share their insights and experiences from the frontline, from the US election to Ukraine to Syria. In their US episode, they interviewed Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, their first guest. Maddow is a bright and thoughtful TV anchor who guides listeners in understanding US politics and shines the light on under-the-radar stories.
7. The Foreign Affairs Interview (Foreign Affairs Magazine)
The magazine’s editor, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, hosts this biweekly podcast where he talks to influential policy makers and thinkers on a range of issues affecting the world, from Taiwan, the South China Sea to Ukraine and the Middle East. In the most recent interview, US State Secretary Antony Blinken takes stock of the network of partnerships and alliances that the US helped put together in the last four years, including in our part of the world.
8. Southeast Asia Radio (Center for Strategic and International Studies or CSIS)
Greg Poling of CSIS and Elina Moor of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace dive into issues affecting our region in conversations with various newsmakers and analysts. This fortnightly podcast also gives a roundup of news in Southeast Asia, making it easy for listeners to get a sense of what’s happening in the region.
9. Why should we care about the Indo-Pacific? (With Ray Powell and Jim Carouso)
Powell is a retired US Air Force officer who heads SeaLight, a program that tracks ship movements of China in the South China Sea to expose its gray zone operations, and Carouso is a former State Department official. Together and through interviews with experts, they help listeners understand the US-China competition as it plays out in the Indo-Pacific.
10) Asian Insider (Straits Times)
Correspondents of The Straits Times discuss foreign-policy issues — the great-power competition, India and the rest of South Asia, South China Sea, ASEAN and Indo-Pacific — with authoritative resource persons. The perspective here is close to home as Singapore is the base of the Straits Times.
What are your favorite foreign affairs podcasts? Let me know. You can email me at marites.vitug@rappler.com.
Happy listening and enjoy the Christmas holidays!
Till next year.
– Rappler.com