Best Investigative Podcasts (2026)
Investigative podcasts are journalism at its best — reporters spending months or years on a single story, uncovering things powerful people would rather stay buried. These 10 shows have broken news, changed laws and freed innocent people.
Waking up with a podcast on iOS
Podcast Alarm is a fully featured podcast player and alarm. You can set up queues of your favourite episodes and listen to them whenever you like. Why not subscribe to your favourite podcast and have the latest episode wake you up every weekday morning. There are lots of screenshots and videos in our "How to set a podcast as an alarm on iphone?" blog post.
1. Serial
The show that proved podcasts could do serious journalism. Sarah Koenig's investigation into the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee — and whether Adnan Syed was wrongly convicted — spawned a genre. Still essential listening.
2. Radiolab
WNYC's long-running science and philosophy show is more investigative than it appears — every episode starts with a question and follows the evidence wherever it goes. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich built a template that a hundred podcasts have tried to copy.
3. Reveal
From the Center for Investigative Reporting, Reveal covers everything from corporate wrongdoing to government failure to environmental crime. Consistently rigorous, consistently important.
4. Planet Money
NPR's economics team regularly breaks stories buried in spreadsheets and regulatory filings — making them entertaining in the process. More investigative than it looks on the surface.
5. Drilled
Amy Westervelt's investigation into the fossil fuel industry's decades-long campaign to confuse the public on climate change. Painstakingly sourced, genuinely alarming, and brilliantly produced.
6. Dirty John
The LA Times investigation into con man John Meehan — painstakingly reported, compulsively listenable. One of the first examples of a newspaper breaking a major story in podcast form rather than print.
7. The Dropout
ABC Audio's investigation into Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos fraud — told with remarkable access and detail. If you want to understand how a charismatic founder can deceive investors, journalists and patients simultaneously, start here.
8. This American Life
Ira Glass's weekly show has been doing investigative storytelling since 1995. The team behind Serial came from here. Several episodes have directly sparked legal investigations and policy changes — a rare claim for any media outlet.
9. Freakonomics Radio
Stephen Dubner applies the tools of investigative journalism to unexpected questions — why do drug dealers live with their mothers, what really reduces crime, who cheats and why. Rigorous sourcing, counterintuitive conclusions, endlessly listenable.
10. Rough Translation
NPR's foreign correspondents investigate stories from outside the US — often the same themes Americans are wrestling with, playing out differently abroad. Quietly one of the best shows on this list.
Start your morning with a story that matters
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Waking up with a podcast on iOS
Podcast Alarm is a fully featured podcast player and alarm. You can set up queues of your favourite episodes and listen to them whenever you like. Why not subscribe to your favourite podcast and have the latest episode wake you up every weekday morning. There are lots of screenshots and videos in our "How to set a podcast as an alarm on iphone?" blog post.
