''On Being'' is a podcast and a former public radio program. Hosted by Krista Tippett, it examines what it calls the "animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?" This podcast should not be confused with the Australian magazine of the same name.

Radio program and podcast

Format

''On Being'' is an hour-long radio show and podcast, hosted by Krista Tippett. Tippett has interviewed guests ranging from poets to physicists, doctors to historians, artists to activists. Her guests include the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credi ...

Mohammed Fairouz Mohammed Fairouz (born November 1, 1985) is an American composer. He is one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation and has been described by Daniel J. Wakin of ''The New York Times'' as an "important new artistic voice". ...

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop ...

Thich Nhat Hanh Thích is a name that Vietnamese monks and nuns take as their Buddhist surname to show affinity with the Buddha. Notable Vietnamese monks with the name include: * Thích Huyền Quang (1919–2008), dissident and activist * Thích Quảng Độ (1 ...

Rosanne Cash Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Cash. Although Cash is often classified as a country artist, her music draws f ...

Wangari Maathai Wangari is a name of Kikuyu origin that may refer to: * Wangari Maathai (1940–2011), Kenyan environmental and political activist * Catherine Wangari Wainaina (born 1985), Kenyan beauty pageant contestant * Margaret Wangari Muriuki (born 1986), K ...

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is a French-born American Cello, cellist. Born to Chinese people, Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy there and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, ...

, Paulo Coehlo,

Brian Greene Brian Randolph Greene (born February 9, 1963) is an American physicist known for his research on string theory. He is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, director of its center for theoretical physics, and the cha ...

John Polkinghorne John Charlton Polkinghorne (16 October 1930 – 9 March 2021) was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest. A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of ma ...

Jean Vanier Jean Vanier (, September 10, 1928 – May 7, 2019) was a Canadian Catholic philosopher and theologian. In 1964, he founded L'Arche, an international federation of communities spread over 37 countries for people with developmental disabilities ...

Joanna Macy Joanna Rogers Macy (born May 2, 1929) is an environmental activist, author, and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She is the author of twelve books. She was married to the late Francis Underhill Macy, the activist ...

Sylvia Earle Sylvia Alice Earle (born August 30, 1935) is an American marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer. She has been a National Geographic Explorer at Large (formerly Explorer in Residence) since 1998. Earle was the first fem ...

, and

Elie Wiesel Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates#1980, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel bibliogra ...

. In 2006, ''On Being'' became the first national public radio show to offer unedited interviews alongside the produced radio show in their podcast and on their website.

History

Krista Tippett pitched a series of pilots on religion, meaning, and ethics to Bill Buzenberg, then Vice President for News at Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media, in the late 1990s. The program became ''Speaking of Faith'', a monthly series in 2001 and a weekly national program distributed by

American Public Media American Public Media (APM) is an American company that produces and distributes public radio programs in the United States, the second largest company of its type after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and o ...

(APM) in 2003. In 2010, the show's name changed to ''On Being''. In 2013, Tippett left APM to start the non-profit production company, Krista Tippett Public Productions, which she described as "a social enterprise with a radio show at its heart". As of July 2014, ''On Being'' aired on 334 public radio stations across the United States, and the ''On Being'' podcast reached a global audience of 1.5 million listeners a month. ''On Being'' was listed in the iTunes top ten podcasts of 2014. In 2016, ''On Being'' changed distributors from APM to the

Public Radio Exchange The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is a non-profit web-based platform for digital distribution, review, and licensing of radio programs. The organization is the largest on-demand catalogue of public radio programs available for broadcast and internet ...

. In May 2022 it was announced that as of June 2022 the program would be changing from a weekly show to a "seasonal podcast," and the final weekly program aired in late June 2022.

Content

The ''

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was "to assess the performance ...

'' said of ''On Being'' and Tippett, "To listen to her show is to hear how intelligent and thoughtful religious people can be when they are allowed to be subjective and not merely regurgitate dogma." In 2008 the show produced a series of programs called "Repossessing Virtue", exploring the spiritual and moral aspects of the economic recession. Other series have included "Revealing Ramadan" and "Living Islam" and "The Civil Conversations Project." In 2014, ''On Being'' produced two radio specials. "Science on Human Frontiers" included interviews with Brian Greene, Natalie Batalha, S. James Gates, Sylvia Earle, and Esther Sternberg. Most recently ''On Being'' produced a special series on "The American Consciousness," a collection of live interviews at the Chautauqua Institution with

Michel Martin Michel McQueen Martin is an American journalist and correspondent for National Public Radio and WNET. After ten years in print journalism, Martin has become best known for her radio and television news broadcasting on national topics. Background ...

Richard Rodriguez Richard Rodriguez (born July 31, 1944) is an American writer who became famous as the author of '' Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez'' (1982), a narrative about his intellectual development. Early life He was born on July 3 ...

Imani Perry Imani Perry (born September 5, 1972) is an American interdisciplinary scholar of race, law, literature, and African American culture. She is currently the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sex ...

, and

Nathan Schneider Nathan Schneider (born 1984) is an American scholar and former journalist, who specializes in economic justice in the online economy. Since 2015, he has been a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Writing on relig ...

. During part of the program's run, musician

Lizzo Melissa Viviane Jefferson (born April 27, 1988), known professionally as Lizzo (), is an American singer and rapper. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she moved to Houston, Texas, with her family at the age of ten. After college, she moved to Minn ...

rapped in the closing credits.

Social enterprise

Krista Tippett Public Productions (KTPP) was founded in 2013 by Krista Tippett as a non-profit production company with a 4,000-square-foot studio and live event space on Loring Park in Minneapolis. KTPP managed the production and funding of the program, which is distributed by APM. In 2018, KTPP changed its name to The On Being Project.

Other Podcasts from The On Being Project

''On Being'' is the flagship podcast for The On Being Project, but the organization has also produced other podcasts. These include ''

Becoming Wise ''Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living'' is a book by Krista Tippett () which discusses the values and questions raised in the author's primary work, ''On Being'', an award-winning podcast and radio program. A parallel p ...

'', which is closely associated with Krista Tippett's 2016 book by the same name; ''

Creating Our Own Lives Creation or The Creation or Creations, may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Creation'' (1922 film), a British silent drama * ''Creation'' (unfinished film), 1931 * ''Creation'' (2009 film), about Charles Darwin Literature * ''Creation ...

,'' which ran from 2016 to 2017; ''Poetry Unbound''; ''This Movie Changed Me''; and ''Living the Questions''.

The Civil Conversations Project

In 2012, ''On Being'' began a series of interviews and live events which became the Civil Conversations Project. The initial four-part series was a collaboration of the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

, the Humphrey School, and the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. The project grew out of a sentiment that Tippett heard from many Americans who felt that our "civic life is broken, that bipartisan consensus is inconceivable". Tippett says that "conduct in public spaces may be as important as the positions we take"; and "How do we walk in disagreement while keeping as much of our society intact as we can?" The Civil Conversations Project has been described in southwestjournal.com as "an ever-evolving effort to help others host the kind of nuanced and empathetic discussions they hear on ''On Being''", and a "lab for returning civility to civic life", with a website containing conversation starters, video of live events, and interviews. Tippett describes the program as about "equipping people, wherever they may live, to create new conversational spaces".

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

has used resources from the Civil Conversations Project. In 2014, the Civil Conversations Project led an international pilot program in places such as

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

and

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Awards

* President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

awarded Tippett the

National Humanities Medal The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the humani ...

for:

"thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom."

George Foster Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in ...

for its radio and online production "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi" in 2007, featuring interview with scholar Fatemeh Keshavarz. *

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

: 2014, 2008, and 2005. *Wilbur Award, Religion Communicators Council, for "Religion in a Time of War," and "Progressive Islam in America." * Ambies Award: 2021.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.onbeing.org/ 1990s American radio programs 2000s American radio programs 2010s American radio programs Audio podcasts English-language radio programs Peabody Award–winning radio programs Webby Award winners 2001 radio programme debuts Religion and spirituality podcasts American podcasts