These days, we can learn so much just by listening to podcasts. And the best part of these podcasts is that they are available for every group of audience and mostly for all common topics, whether it’s sports, celebrities or relationships.
As we live in the age of on-the-go information, podcasts for Foreign Policy can help us stay up-to-date on the evolving international dynamic. Since many of us may not have the time to read every newspaper and magazine, podcasts are a great way to hear news summaries, interviews, and discussions about what is happening around the world.
Table of Contents
Below is a list of the Best Podcasts for Foreign Policy
1. Global News Podcast:
The average length being 30 minutes, this podcast is a great news summary that covers issues around the world in-depth. Recorded every 12 hours at noon and midnight GMT, Global News Podcast is an excellent source of international news from a well-trusted news organization spanning every continent.
With reliable reporting, international stories, and great journalistic scope, the Global News Podcast is truly a staple for anyone interested in being versed in global events.
The Highlights: Providing top news from across the world from the BBC World Service, this podcast version of the popular radio news report provides the most compelling current stories, interviews, and location reports twice each day.
2. FP’s First Person:
This podcast has had a frequency of 1 episode per week Since September 2015. Each week, at Foreign Policy, one person is interviewed for an intimate, narrative-driven conversation about something timely and important in the world.
The Highlights: The guests are people who have participated directly in events, either as protagonists or eyewitnesses. They are asked to tell a story about their experience, not just offer their analysis.
That approach is driven by the feeling here at Foreign Policy that to understand our world—to grasp the complexities and nuances of our time—we need to get as close to the source as possible. Hence, the name First Person.
3. The World Next Week:
With an average length of 25-35 minutes, The World Next Week is a weekly preview of world events in the week ahead from the Council on Foreign Relations. The World Next Week is a great weekly podcast that lays out the events for the coming week and explains their implications for the international environment.
With podcasts released every Thursday, the World Next Week helps us prepare for the weekend ahead and provide ammunition for that Friday night cocktail party chatter.
The Highlights: The World Next Week Podcast from the Council on Foreign Relations looks forward to the major upcoming events in global politics each week and how things might play out.
CFR’s Director of Studies James M. Lindsay and CFR.org Managing Editor Robert J. McMahon offer their ideas regarding current global affairs, drawing on their deep knowledge of the history of foreign relations of the United States.
In each 30-minute episode, they cover a number of key topics that the world will face each week, and they also look back at what has happened recently in terms of major global events.
4. PRI’s The World:
PRI’s The World Podcast is a daily world news magazine that is a co-production of Public Radio International, the BBC World Service, and WGBH in Boston. Hosted by Marco Werman, each show covers world news and interesting stories from around the world in public radio’s signature style.
The average length of each show is about 45 minutes, they are put out by PRI Monday through Friday with two weeks of episodes remaining up on the podcast. In addition to global political news, they also cover economics, language, and music from around the globe.
We also get to hear stories of a more personal nature as their reporters’ interview individuals throughout the world.
The Highlights: The Geo Quiz from PRI’s The World challenges our knowledge of people and places, geography, and culture. Created by journalists in the newsroom, each Geo Quiz question comes with its own answer, a fascinating report or interview that reveals a mystery location.
5. New Books in World Affairs:
The New Books in World Affairs Podcast is part of the larger New Books Podcast Network, which is focused on high-quality author interviews covering a variety of challenging, up-to-date topics.
With this world affairs podcast, a revolving group of NBN moderators sits down to speak with authors that also happen to be leading thinkers in the fields of sociology, history, politics, and general philosophy.
The Highlights: Episodes tend to be an hour-long, which provides ample time for authors to draw out the big ideas of a given book.
This is a great podcast for serious readers interested in discovering new books in geopolitics, religious studies, intellectual history, and political theory as it includes interviews with Scholars of Global Affairs about their New Books.
6. Foreign Policy Focus:
Foreign Policy Focus is a podcast hosted by Kyle. It covers current events overseas and how those events affect us at home. While US military operations in the Middle East seem like they are on the other side of the world, they have real impacts on the everyday lives of Americans.
The Highlights: Wars are the most costly of all US government actions and politicians use them to strip away the rights of Americans.
Knowing what our government is doing around the globe will give us insight into what they are doing at home. This podcast has had a frequency of 3 episodes per week since February 2017.
7. Deep State Radio:
Twice a week, this podcast will take us on a smart, direct, sometimes scary, sometimes profane, sometimes hilarious tour of the inner workings of American power and of the impact of our leaders and their policies on our standing in the world.
Hosted by noted author and commentator David Rothkopf and featuring regulars Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School, Kori Schake of Stanford University and David Sanger of the New York Times, the program will be the lively, smart dinner table conversation on the big issues of the day that we wish we were having…without the calories.
The Highlights: Sometimes special guests will join the conversation and always the emphasis will be on providing the unvarnished perspectives others shy away from. Deep State Radio is the insider perspective on American national security and foreign policy that we can’t find anywhere else.
8. Pod Save the World:
Pod Save the World is the foreign affairs arm of the Crooked Media slate of progressive political news podcasts hosted by former Obama-administration insiders John Favreau, Tommy Vietor, and Jon Lovett.
With this podcast, Vietor utilizes his first-hand National Security experience to discuss both past and current foreign policy matters.
Washington insiders from a wide array of backgrounds are interviewed to discuss the fascinating inner workings, decisions, deals, and challenges that face policy makers in Washington.
The Highlights: “Pod Save America” co-host Tommy Vietor thought foreign policy was boring and complicated until he got the education of a lifetime working for President Obama’s National Security Council.
On “Pod Save the World,” he and former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes break down the latest developments and bring us behind the scenes with the people who were there. New episodes are live every Wednesday.
9. FT World Weekly:
As a trusted source of international news, FT World Weekly is an excellent extension of this renowned publication. Their weekly podcast does in-depth coverage of specific international topics beyond financial news making this a great addition to anyone looking to further their news repertoire.
The Highlights: Each week, the show focuses on one of the major international stories making headlines, drawing upon the Financial Times’s team of foreign correspondents and analysts to make sense of world events.
Presented by Gideon Rachman and produced by Hannah Murphy, the average length of the podcast is 15 minutes.
10. From Our Own Correspondent Podcast:
If one likes to go beyond the headlines when hearing stories about what is happening around the world, BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent Podcast is the best thing he can listen to.
Presented by Kate Adie and Pascale Harter, this BBC radio show has been broadcasting since 1955 and features BBC foreign correspondents from around the globe reporting on specific stories that relate to current events.
Often these correspondents travel to places that aren’t covered in the headlines of the day, and they provide news that might otherwise go uncovered.
The Highlights: These 25-minute podcast episodes include good descriptions and the weekly episodes go back over several years on their podcast feed, so we can browse around for stories that interest us the most.
As BBC correspondents, journalists and writers take a closer look at the stories behind the headlines; this podcast is all about insight, wit, and analysis.
