Experience: Analysing Newsmakers

I Just Handed In My Lanyard | Starmer's exit, gravitas, and the war on Black Friday

Peter has retired. Not from being a psychologist, but from the university, and the Concept of the Week is the term for precisely that. Role exit. The original paper says

Treat 'Em Mean, Keep 'Em Scrolling | Meta on trial, named storms and the weekend at 100

Peter opens with the Concept of the Week and it turns out to explain almost everything else in the episode. Variable ratio reinforcement is why the fox keeps coming back

It's More Complicated Than the Headline | public shaming, an eclipse and Count Binface

This week runs from the heavy to the daft. We start with the emergency alert and the wildfire risk behind it, which leads Peter into the Concept of the Week. Then the har

Even James Bond Steps on a Banana Skin | results day, disappointment and Freshers' Week

This week is a practical one: a guide to A-level results day and the leap to university, for anyone with a teenager in the house and for the teenagers themselves. We star

There Is No Right Way to Grieve | death rituals, the Bush case and farewell to Bill Oddie

We start light this week, with identity and where you are from: Peter refereeing whether someone from Wilmslow really counts as a Mancunian (his ruling is that if she thi

The Adult in the Room | Ossoff vs Hegseth, Natalie Fleet and Burnham’s Trump problem

This week is all about names, and how much they give away before you have said a word. Peter takes us through what a name signals about class and background, and why a ge

What Number 10 Does to You | Burnham's first day, Kerr's record and the money myth

We recorded this one at nine o'clock on a Monday morning, a few hours before Andy Burnham walked into Number 10 as the country's fifth Prime Minister in five years. So we

Coming Soon...

A taste of what Experience sounds like: Hilary Jeffs and Peter Kinderman taking a headline and working out what's really driving it. Hilary's from communications, Peter's