The truth about Oatly’s climate-friendly credentials

Journalists put the plant-based brand to the test in The Oatly Chronicles. Plus: five of the best Today in Focus episodes

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Today we are celebrating five years of the Guardian’s flagship news podcast, Today in Focus (TiF). When the podcast first launched in November 2018, there was very little else out there in terms of narrative, daily news podcasts that tell a single news story in a deep, engaging way.

TiF was born into an extraordinarily hectic news cycle. “It was a wild time to be in daily news: Brexit negotiations were getting crazier and crazier,” says Nicole Jackson, who is now the Guardian’s head of audio. “We had a UK election, then a US one. We used to think we’d pivot slightly when the news calmed down, but it just continued.”

In one of its first reviews, the New York Times (which launched its news podcast The Daily in 2017) described the vibe of TiF as “cheeky yet serious”. Nicole was delighted. “We take the news very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” she says.

Phil Maynard, TiF’s joint executive producer alongside Homa Khaleeli, says the early days were incredible fun as they assembled a young team of new recruits and set them loose on the Guardian’s correspondents. “There were a lot of late nights as we got to grips with the production, and having to deal with such a fast-moving news cycle. We even had people actually running to and from parliament to get clips of late-night Brexit votes.”

Before he had brushed his teeth on the first morning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Phil had called up three of the Guardian’s reporters on the ground and asked them to record sound on their phone. “It was before we even really knew what had happened, but we knew we needed to make an episode really fast.”

Phil prides himself on how good TiF sounds, even if that means that sometimes hour-long interviews are canned and re-recorded right up against deadline. In one incident then-India correspondent Michael Safi spent three hours huddled under both a duvet and curtain in an Islamabad hotel room telling the curious story of an American missionary killed on a remote Indian island.

Mike liked reporting for TiF so much, he is now one of the main presenters alongside Nosheen Iqbal. “The thing that really makes TiF fun, is that we don’t have a set format,” he says. “Instead, we build the episode around how best to tell the story.”

Picks of the week

Build the Life You Want
Widely available, episodes weekly
This spin-off from the staggeringly successful Super Soul podcast is packed with Oprah magic and tips on how to live better. Even if good deeds and mindfulness make you want to regurgitate your couscous, it’s hard to resist Winfrey. First, she looks at the ingredients of a happy existence with simple but irresistible mantras such as “social media is the junk food of social life” and “happiness is not a destination, it’s a direction.” Hannah Verdier

Joe Lycett’s Turdcast
Widely available, episodes weekly
David Beckham, Liz Truss: no one is safe from Joe Lycett’s attention. But now the “incredibly rightwing” comedian is turning his comedy hand to poo, with a podcast featuring celebrities telling their toilet stories. First up is Gary Lineker, who inevitably must relive his on-pitch poo at the 1990 World Cup. HV
Heirs of Enslavement
Widely available, episodes weekly
Clive Lewis MP’s ancestors were enslaved and former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan’s were enslavers – and both want to confront the past. This podcast sees them travel to Grenada to meet Lewis’s dad and historian Nicole Phillip-Dowe, who helped Trevelyan’s family draft an apology to the country. Plenty of thought-provoking discussions follow. HV
Third Eye
Audible, all episodes out now
Laughs aren’t usually common in sci-fi fantasy podcasts, but Felicia Day’s story of an ordinary girl who’s destined to fight evil is full of them. Neil Gaiman is the enthusiastic narrator and Day is the blundering chosen one in a world full of human normies, selfie-seeking superhero fans and mind-wiping tricks. HV
The Oatly Chronicles
Widely available, all episodes out now
Prepare for some hard truths in this three-part investigation into whether oat milk – specifically, the choice of every hipster for their flat white, Oatly – really is better for the planet. There has been much scrutiny over the Swedish brand, starting with the claim that it needs to grow into a massive corporate success in order to properly defeat the big dairy industry. Hollie Richardson

There’s a podcast for that

This week, Nicole Jackson, head of audio at the Guardian, chooses five of the best Today in Focus podcasts, from an investigation into royal finances to one Ukrainian soldier’s extraordinary story
Human catastrophe unfolds in Israel and Gaza
Host Michael Safi talks to Sharone Lifschitzrom whose parents were kidnapped on 7 October and Hazem Balousha, a freelance journalist in Gaza City, about the increasingly desperate situation that residents are experiencing. An incredibly moving episode.

The Cost of the Crown – valuing the royal family
This series was part of a major Guardian investigation into the royal family and led to King Charles’s first signal for support of research into his family’s historic ties to transatlantic slavery

The volunteer fighter: ‘Life will never be the same’
This interview with 22-year-old Volodymyr Ksienich really captured the horror of the Russian invasion on ordinary Ukrainian civilians. Once an NGO worker, Ksienich was now learning to use a rifle and spending his nights in the woods preparing to repel a Russian attack.

On the frontline of the cost of living crisis
Host Nosheen Iqbal has a raw conversation with Amie Jordan, a single mother, about the reality of the cost of living crisis. The conversation led to an outpouring of sympathy for Jordan and donations from listeners.

The Pegasus project part 1: an invitation to Paris
The first of an ambitious five-part Guardian investigation that took listeners into the shadowy world of a powerful phone hacking tool being used by governments around the world.

Why not try …

From ghostly phantoms to vengeful poltergeists, a series of paranormal encounters in Uncanny.

In Have a Nice Future, Wired’s Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode speak with top technologists, thinkers and creators.

Investigative reporter Paul Caruana Galizia returns to report the story of the foiled assassination attempts on British soil of Iranian nationals in Londongrad: Iran’s Hit Squads.