Rukmini Callimachi's ISIS investigation that became a case study in its own failure.
Caliphate follows New York Times reporters as they pursue the machinery and ideology of ISIS through interviews, documents, and difficult source encounters. Its later re-examination turns the series into a case study in both terrorism reporting and the cost of getting a central source wrong.
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Caliphate is structured as a chaptered narrative documentary: reporter Rukmini Callimachi and producer/reporter Andy Mills follow a reporting thread that begins with a Canadian man's claim to have been an ISIS fighter and executioner, then widens into radicalization theory, ISIS's external operations, and its treatment of captives. Individual chapters bring in outside voices, such as former Al-Qaeda online recruiter Jesse Morton, to place the central source's story inside a broader pattern of jihadist ideology and English-language propaganda. Other chapters are built from on-the-ground reporting, including interviews Callimachi conducted with captured ISIS fighters inside a Mosul prison holding roughly 700 detainees, and a phone call with a Yazidi survivor of ISIS captivity. The series later pivots to a self-examination format: after Canadian authorities charged the central source, Shairoz Chowdhury, with perpetrating a terrorism hoax, the show aired an interview episode in which NYT executive editor Dean Baquet and investigative reporter Mark Mazzetti describe how the paper's re-reporting found no corroboration for his claims and where the original editorial process broke down. Re-released chapters carry an on-air correction note flagging the source's unresolved credibility. Listeners are typically drawn to the show for terrorism and radicalization reporting, war crimes documentation, or journalism ethics and verification practices. It functions both as a case study in investigative methods — document collection, open-source identification, source vetting — and, in its later episodes, as a case study in how those methods failed. Production is reported and narrative rather than panel or talk-show format, built around Callimachi's own recorded fieldwork. It is a limited series of 13 episodes rather than an ongoing show.
Made for: Listeners interested in terrorism and radicalization reporting, war crimes documentation, or journalism accountability and source verification failures.
What sets it apart: Unlike most terrorism or true-crime podcasts, Caliphate's own reporting became the subject of a formal internal investigation and on-air correction, aired within the same series.
In the war on terror, who is it that we’re really fighting? “Caliphate” follows Rukmini Callimachi, who covers terrorism for The New York Times, on her quest to understand ISIS. For more information about the series, visit nytimes.com/caliphate. This series includes disturbing language and scenes of graphic violence. Producer: Andy Mills; Reporters: Rukmini Callimachi and Andy Mills; Managing Producer: Larissa Anderson; Editors: Wendy Dorr and Larissa Anderson; Associate Producer: Asthaa Chaturvedi; Technical Director: Brad Fisher; Executive Producer, NYT Audio: Lisa Tobin; Editorial Director, NYT Audio: Samantha Henig; Assistant Managing Editor, NYT: Sam Dolnick; Music: William Brittelle, A…
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Caliphate makes ISIS's machinery legible while preserving a candid account of the reporting failure at the center of its own investigation.
Caliphate reconstructs how ISIS recruitment, propaganda and violence operated through reported narration, interviews and field encounters. Reporter Rukmini Callimachi traces the movement from English-language radicalisation to life under ISIS, while prison reporting and Yazidi…
A terrorism investigation becomes its own autopsy, and your certainty does not survive the correction.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careful postmortem on a major story, with the reporting process left fully visible.
Caliphate is a newsroom self-audit around a major ISIS story and the harder question of whether the reporting held up. Dean Baquet explains why the paper reopened the case, brought in skeptical Times journalists, and had Mark Mazzetti's team test the claims against what…
A grave, carefully built chapter that turns testimony into clarity without softening the horror.
Chapter Nine: Prisoners settles into the hard, uneasy work of showing what ISIS captivity looked like from the inside. It moves from a police station in western Mosul to survivor testimony, then to a careful account of how sexual slavery sat inside ISIS's ideology.
A grave chapter that tests a violent claim against the reporting around it.
It tracks Abu Huzaifa's claim that he was in ISIS and says he committed multiple murders, while staying careful about what the reporting can actually support.
A grave look at how ideology and internet messaging can pull someone toward violence.
This chapter follows the mechanics of ISIS radicalization through the post-Iraq War turn, Anwar al-Awlaki's lectures, and the private disappointment that can make violence feel like purpose. It is strongest when it lets the taped voices carry the weight.
A newsroom reckoning that keeps the reporting process in view.
The chapter treats a newsroom reckoning as the main story. It follows the reporting around Abu Huzaifa al-Qanadi, tracing how claims about ISIS and multiple murders were gathered, checked, and then revisited after Canadian police arrested Huzaifa, whose real name is Shairoz…
New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet and investigative reporter Mark Mazzetti sit down with host Michael to explain how the Caliphate podcast misidentified Shiraz Chaudhry — who called himself Abu Huzaifa — as a genuine ISIS executioner when he was in fact a fraud.
Western Mosul is where this part starts.
A correction opens the hour.
A warning comes first.
A correction changes how the episode lands.