The Tip Off

Maeve McClenaghan hosts this brilliantly focused show that does one thing and does it well: she sits down with investigative journalists and gets them to walk through exactly how their biggest stories came together. Not the polished version you read in the final article, but the messy reality of dead-end leads, redacted documents, doors slammed in faces, and the single tip that cracked everything open. Each episode runs around 30 minutes, which turns out to be the perfect length for this kind of behind-the-curtain storytelling. McClenaghan is an investigative reporter herself, working on stories about arms deals and institutional failures, so she asks the right follow-up questions and knows when to push for specifics. The show has covered the BBC's famous Prince Andrew interview, lead contamination in Canadian drinking water, oil drilling damage in Basra, and British soldiers' alleged crimes in Kenya. With 76 episodes and a 4.8-star rating, it releases about twice a month from the UK. What makes The Tip Off special is that it treats journalism itself as an adventure story, which it genuinely is when you hear reporters describe staking out buildings or traveling undercover to hostile locations. It's the kind of podcast that makes you appreciate the actual labor behind the headlines you scroll past every morning.