The Documentary Podcast

As Iran prepares to hold its presidential election to select a replacement for Hassan Rouhani, BBC Persian presenter Rana Rahimpour brings together Iranians, both in the country and living abroad, to hear about their lives and thoughts. Three young Iranians discuss what it’s like to live in a country where many people want to leave and need two jobs to make ends meet. Plus two sisters - one in Lon...

Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the ten years of civil war in her country. This week Chloe Hadjimatheou tells the astonishing story of a group of young men from Raqqa, Syria, who chose to resist the so-called Islamic State, which occupied their city in 2014 and made it the capital of their ‘Caliphate’. These extraordinary activi...

Are children always better off in a two-parent family? Ateira Griffin, daughter of a single mother and the director of non-profit organisation that supports black single mothers and their daughters, explores what it is like for a family to be headed by a mum without a dad, a family structure that is on the rise in her native United States. In fact children in single mum households account for half...

Introducing our new original podcast. Here’s episode 1: Hacking Hollywood. A movie, Kim Jong-un and a devastating cyber attack. The story of the Sony hack. How the Lazarus Group hackers caused mayhem. And this is just the beginning…Search for The Lazarus Heist wherever you get your podcasts. #LazarusHeist

The Olympic Games now look certain to go ahead in Japan in July. However, some people in the country are against holding the event, as it tackles a fourth wave of coronavirus cases, low vaccination and the extension of a state of emergency in Tokyo and other areas. Two doctors in Tokyo share their observations, experiences and concerns. As some countries, including Japan, struggle to vaccinate old...

Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the 10 years of civil war in her country. This week an extraordinary story from 2016, reported by Mike Thomson, about a secret library stored in the basement of a crumbling house in the besieged Syrian town of Darayya. The library was home to thousands of books rescued from bombed-out buildings by...

Globalisation is about open trade, open doors and open borders. It is the way that Asia has grown its economy for the better part of the last half century. But the pandemic and tensions between the US and China have seen globalisation go into reverse - with many now saying it hasn’t benefited everyone. One of the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation has been Singapore. But the city-state is now...

Alvin Hall tells the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in US history. In the early 20th Century, Tulsa was a wild west town which became a boom city. But the oil capital of the world was also home to the thriving and prosperous district of Greenwood - nicknamed 'Black Wall Street' by Booker T Washington - because it was a mecca for Black entreprene...

A century ago, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in US history took place - the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Greenwood was a prosperous and thriving district, nicknamed 'Black Wall Street' because it was a mecca for Black entrepreneurs and businesses. Dick Rowland, was wrongly accused of attacking a white girl in an elevator - a charge she would quickly recant. But after a sensationalist n...

Vaccines are seen as a way out of the coronavirus pandemic; a way to stop transmission and have fewer patients in hospital. Host Nuala McGovern shares different experiences of vaccination and hospitalisation. For some who have been vaccinated, infection is still possible, but hospitalisation is expected to be less likely. Two guests describe their reactions to getting a positive test, after having...

Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the ten years of civil war in her country. This week she introduces Tim Whewell’s programme from 2016 about what happened to a local football team in Aleppo province in the early years of the civil war: A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sent Tim on a journey to track down the football players in t...

On 25 May 1986, 6.5 million people did the impossible; they joined hands to form the world’s longest human chain, from New York to Los Angeles. But far from being a simple stunt, Hands Across America was raising money to fight hunger and homelessness in the world’s richest country. Did it succeed? Aleks Krotoski was 11 years old when she stood in the sunshine between her mother and a stranger and...

Now that scientists have created a Covid-19 vaccine in record time, the race is on to vaccinate the world. Public health professor Devi Sridhar follows the journey of the Covid vaccine from factory to arm as she goes behind the scenes of the rollout. Speaking to health leaders, politicians and experts, we see how the world is responding and look at how long it might take to vaccinate enough people...

On 12 April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became an explorer like none other before him, going faster and further than any human in history, into what had always been the impenetrable and infinite unknown. Raised in poverty during the World War Two, the one-time foundry worker and a citizen of the Soviet Union became the first human to fly above the Earth. Dr Kevin Fong tells the story of how 27-ye...

After 11 days of conflict, a ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The violence in that time killed more than 250 people, most of them in Gaza. During this past week, host Nuala McGovern has been hearing conversations from both Palestinians and Israelis about what it has been like to be living under bombardment. They talk about their lives and hopes for...

Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the 10 years of civil war in her country. In 2013 Lina recorded an audio diary of her final days in Damascus where she was working for the BBC. In this intimate and revealing programme, she combines dramatic scenes and interview material with her own story as she discusses her thoughts, feelings a...

London-based broadcaster Edward Adoo and US DJ T Storm team up to discuss the experiences of black people who are stopped and searched in their countries. Together they hear the personal stories of others from all over the world who’ve suffered the humiliation of what many who have been stopped say is apparent racial stereotyping. They also talk to researchers and policy makers about the psycholog...

Dr Solelwa Sifumba in Johannesburg, South Africa, recently left the profession after experiencing such chronic anxiety that it even led to her considering taking her own life. She is joined by two fellow doctors in the UK, as they discuss burnout and the mental health challenges of working in constant crisis mode since the pandemic began. They tell host Nuala McGovern about the difficulty in their...

Jacques Cousteau called Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, ‘the aquarium of the world’. It is home to one of the most critically endangered species on earth. The vaquita is a small porpoise facing total extinction, whose numbers have dwindled to less than a dozen. In particular, the vaquita get caught in the nets used to catch totoaba. Casting nets for this large marine fish is illegal. But the totoaba’s swi...

Forty years after the death of reggae singer Bob Marley, British writer and dub poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, remembers the day Jamaica came to a standstill for the singer’s funeral. Bob Marley was laid to rest on the 21 May 1981, 11 days after dying from skin cancer. The extraordinary day saw the island come together to mourn their most famous son – and to celebrate his life and work.. Among those re...

For the past seven years, Marlo has been making a podcast about life as a single mum raising her transgender daughter. In this programme Marlo reaches out to parents of transgender children and adults from around the world, who she has connected with through her podcast. From the mother of a Fa’afafine girl in Samoa, to a single mother who had to move her family from Italy to Spain to keep them sa...

The pandemic has caused millions of job losses during the past year. The travel industry is one area that has been badly affected as many countries closed their borders or restricted entry. As a result, thousands of pilots are no longer flying and are out of work. Host Nuala McGovern hears from two pilots in Canada and the UK about what it’s like to lose a job that’s part of your identity and what...

More than 750 people have been killed by the Myanmar military since they seized power in a coup three months ago. Mass protests demanding a return to democracy and the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi have been met with brutal force. Borders are closed and the internet effectively blocked. This is a story the military does not want the world to hear. But people are bravely documenting th...

On the eve of what would have been the world's largest share listing, Ant Financial founder Jack Ma, the Chinese billionaire mysteriously disappeared. Things started to go wrong for Ma after he told a room full of banking regulators that their methods were out of date and not fit for purpose. Shortly afterwards, the Chinese government cancelled the listing and Jack went silent. So what has happene...

For the past seven years, Marlo has been making a podcast about life as a single mum raising her transgender daughter. In the first programme, Marlo explains why she put her daughter’s story out for the world to hear. She says she felt compelled to tell their story, and to show people that ‘we exist’.