APP
OF THE
DAY
Tortoise
Slow news. Not breaking news.
In the era of so-called “fake news”, Tortoise aims to stand out as a new way of providing you with information.
Its mission is to cut through the slew of rushed reports online to bring you the most important stories in a more considered fashion. You won’t find breaking news but you’ll find quality investigations and in-depth articles. It is “slow news” – hence the tortoise association.
Within the app, you’ll find a home page dedicated to top stories and current investigations, a section for current affairs podcasts and a library where you can go for long reads on what Tortoise calls the “Big Five forces” that are changing the world (technology, longevity, finance, identity and the environment). There are no ads – all the content is membership based.
Tortoise has some weighty news veterans behind it. Tortoise Media was cofounded by James Harding, former editor of The Times and former director of BBC News and Katie Vanneck-Smith, formerly president of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones.
Harding, among other editors, also hosts the Tortoise ThinkIns. These are regular meetups that members can attend, which start with drinks and move on to forums for “civilised disagreement” on a particular topic or with a particular expert.
No questions are allowed, just the sharing of opinion and the idea is to potentially generate a news story out of the event. Former topics have included carbon emissions, Brexit and psychopaths and ThinkIn guests have included Michael Palin, Richard Dawkins and Mary Beard.
So, with Tortoise you could do more than just read the news, you could make the news.