FP's The Backstory

The Backstory is a Foreign Policy podcast that brings together FP’s own editors and writers and our intrepid reporters to dig into the stories behind the stories, and the on the ground experiences of what it’s like covering the news from around the world. Foreign Policy is the world’s leading media organization dedicated to providing leaders in business, finance, and government with real time insight and analysis into global affairs. As authoritative as it is dedicated to challenging wisdom, FP is unique in its ability to bring together the powerful with those committed to speaking truth to power.

The Rocky Path Toward Kurdish Independence

David Kenner is joined by Campbell MacDiarmid and Douglas Ollivant to discuss Campbell's recent interview with Kurdistan's President Masoud Barzani about the Sept 25, 2017 referendum on independence.

07-05
38:25

How to Tell a Story of Kidnapping and Climate Change in Somalia

Laura Heaton and Nichole Sobecki detail their reporting on Dr. Murray Watson and the impact his once thought-to-be lost work could have on the country decades later.

06-19
42:48

How to Convince People — and the U.S. President — to Care About Climate Change?

Set discussions of science aside and talk about how to save the polar bears.

06-08
39:05

Why Do Internationally Backed Peace Processes Fail?

FP staffers talk about their reporting on the ground in South Sudan and Colombia and how war crimes, revolution, women, and Washington all played a role in those countries’ faltering peace processes.

10-13
34:43

300,000 Chinese Students Attend U.S. Colleges. What Will They Learn About American Life?

Editors David Wertime and Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian talk to three young Chinese about how studying stateside changed their views of the United States — and their home.

10-07
--:--

The Final Front in the Afghan War

FP’s Dan De Luce talks to Sune Rasmussen and Andrew Quilty about reporting from Helmand Province, where the fighting has worsened and the Taliban is gaining ground.

09-22
31:02

An Abandoned Daughter Returns to China

Editors Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and David Wertime talk to Jenna Cook about how the quest to find her birth mother captivated China — and why she finally decided to write her side of the story for FP.

04-28
31:17

The Power of Narrative Comics

FP’s Mindy Kay Bricker talks to writer Alia Malek and alternative cartoonist Josh Neufeld about telling the story of the Syrian refugee crisis through a comic.

01-29
24:24

Covering Burma’s Historic Election

FP's Rebecca Frankel and Ilya Lozovsky talk to Christian Caryl about campaign rallies, voters who are betting on hope and change, and Aung San Suu Kyi.

11-06
35:29

Inside the MSF Hospital in Kunduz

FP's Rebecca Frankel and Dan De Luce talk to photojournalist Andrew Quilty about what it was like covering the aftermath of the tragic U.S. airstrike on the ground in Afghanistan.

10-21
37:19

Recommend Channels