''Planet Money'' is an American
podcast
A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...
and
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
produced by
NPR. Using "creative and entertaining" dialogue and narrative, ''Planet Money'' claims to be "The Economy Explained".
History
The podcast was created by
Alex Blumberg and
Adam Davidson after the success of "
The Giant Pool of Money," an episode they recorded for ''
This American Life
''This American Life'' is a weekly hour-long American radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internationally, and is ...
''. ''Planet Money'' was launched on September 6, 2008, to cover the
2008 financial crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
in the wake of the
federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
In September 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it would take over the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). Both government-sponsored enter ...
. In early 2020, ''Planet Money'' celebrated its 1000th episode, bringing back many former hosts and contributors to mark the occasion.
Program
The length of the podcasts ranges between 6–30 minutes. ''Planet Money'' uses abridged narratives to tackle popular, complex topics like
American health care or
insider trading
Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider informati ...
. The format aims to make economic journalism approachable to audiences interested in learning more about popular economic issues, but who do not have an academic background in economics. The episodes are typically stand-alone. The interviewees or guests range from academic experts and business professionals to general members of the North American public. Providing listeners with primary source material, the podcast's hosts contribute contextual framing and commentary. Intimate stories are used as a leading thread and use commonplace language with entertaining plots to describe abstract or complex economic and political issues. This method translates political or economic topics, once historically dependent on academic language and higher education, to stories that engage the general public. This technique engages larger and/or younger audiences, while other audiences are attracted by their coverage of popular topics within North American culture.
''Planet Money'' provides regular reports for ''
Morning Edition
''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...
'' and ''
All Things Considered
''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
'' and occasional episodes for ''This American Life''. ''Planet Money'' was the first to report the small print in the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing fi ...
that allowed deviation from the original
Paulson plan. Senator
Max Baucus
Maxwell Sieben Baucus ( Enke; born December 11, 1941) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Montana from 1978 to 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a U.S. senator for over 35 years, making him the long ...
praised the show's attempts to explain the financial crisis "in terms the average American starts to understand". ''Planet Money'' episodes have been incorporated into
undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...
microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and Theory of the firm, firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarcity, scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. M ...
and
macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output (econ ...
courses at some universities.
''Planet Money'' was involved in an NPR series about the
Wells Fargo account fraud scandal
The Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal was caused by creation of millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts on behalf of Wells Fargo clients without their consent or knowledge due to aggressive internal sales goals at Wells Fargo. News ...
, which earned NPR a
2016 Peabody Award. The podcast also won best podcast at the 2015 RAIN Internet Radio Awards.
External projects
In 2017, ''The Indicator,'' hosted by ''Planet Money''
's Stacey Vanek Smith and the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
Cardiff Garcia'','' was launched as ''Planet Money''
's first spin-off podcast. With a similar storytelling approach, it delivers faster, shorter, more frequent podcasts. The podcast, which publishes every weekday, breaks down big ideas using ''Planet Money''
's style of witty entertainment-journalism. Each episode is approximately 10 minutes or less.
On February 28, 2018, the first episode of ''Planet Money Shorts'' was released. ''Planet Money Shorts'' is a monthly video series created by Bronson Arcuri and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey and published by NPR. It can be streamed from their webpage or watched on their
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
channel.
In 2020, ''Planet Money'' began posting videos on
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
and also joined the platform's #LearnOnTikTok initiative which paid creators and publishers to post education content on the platform. In 2021, the account was nominated for a
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 ...
in the "Education & Discovery, Social Video (Social)" category.
''Planet Money'' has launched unique projects such as buying 100 barrels of crude oil and following it from ground to gas tank, launching a satellite, and building an algorithmic trading
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
bot.
Inspired by the book ''The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy'' by
Pietra Rivoli, the ''Planet Money'' team made a t-shirt and followed the shirt in a step-by-step journey from resource production to manufacturing.
The design for the shirt was a squirrel holding a martini glass, which was meant to reference the economist
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
' phrase for the human elements in economics, the "animal spirits."
More than 25,000 of the shirts were sold online. The t-shirts were sold as part of a
Kickstarter
Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...
campaign became an unexpected runaway hit, raising more than 10 times their original goal of $50,000. Executive producer
Alex Blumberg worked with
Pietra Rivoli as project advisor, and Kainaz Amaria, Brian Boyer, and
Joshua Davis were managing producers.
The ''Planet Money'' team also attempted to buy the rights to lesser-known
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...
character
Doorman for $10,000. After meeting with
Gene Luen Yang to talk about his reboot of the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
character
Green Turtle
The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exte ...
, the team decided to adapt the fellow public domain character Micro-Face. A 24-page comic was written by
Alex Segura
Alex Segura (born 1980) is an American author, comic book writer, artist, and editor. He has written numerous comics and novels, including ''Secret Identity'', which won the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller.
Biography
Seg ...
, with interior art by
Jamal Igle
Jamal Yaseem Igle is an American comic book artist, editor, art director, marketing executive and animation storyboard artist. The creator of the comic book series ''Molly Danger'' he is also known for his pencilling, inking and coloring work on ...
, lettering by Taylor Esposito, coloring by Ellie Wright, and cover art by
Jerry Ordway
Jeremiah Joseph Ordway (born November 28, 1957) is an American writer, penciller, inker and painter of comic books.
He is known for his inking work on a wide variety of DC Comics titles, including the continuity-redefining ''Crisis on Infinite E ...
.
Hosts
Current hosts
* Amanda Aronczyk
* Erika Beras
* Mary Childs
* Nick Fountain
* Sarah Gonzalez
* Jeff Guo
* Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi
* Kenny Malone
* Greg Rosalsky
Former hosts
*
Alex Blumberg
*
Ailsa Chang
* Zoe Chace
* Karen Duffin
* Cardiff Garcia
*
Jacob Goldstein
* Steve Henn
* Chana Joffe-Walt
* Caitlin Kenney
*
David Kestenbaum
*
Noel King
*
Robert Smith
* Stacey Vanek Smith
References
External links
*
{{NPR
2008 podcast debuts
Audio podcasts
Business and finance podcasts
NPR programs
Peabody Award–winning radio programs
Radio programs about economics
Economics websites
American podcasts