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| Planet Money | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Economic, culture, business |
| Language | English |
| Cast and voices | |
| Hosted by |
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| Production | |
| Production | Alex Goldmark (executive producer), Jess Jiang (editor), Molly Messick (editor), Dave Blanchard, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, Emma Peaslee, Willa Rubin, James Sneed. |
| Length | 15–30 minutes |
| Publication | |
| Original release | September 6, 2008 |
| Provider | National Public Radio |
| Updates | Twice weekly |
| Reception | |
| Cited for | Peabody Award 2016 |
| Related | |
| Website | www |
Planet Money is an Americanpodcast andblog produced byNPR. Launched in 2008 during theglobal financial crisis, the program uses narrative storytelling to explain complex economic topics to a general audience. It describes its mission as "The Economy Explained" through "creative and entertaining" dialogue.[1]
The podcast originated from a successful collaboration betweenThis American Life and NPR journalistsAlex Blumberg andAdam Davidson. Since its inception, the show has expanded into a multimedia brand, including the daily spin-off podcastThe Indicator, a popularTikTok presence, and various investigative projects such as manufacturing a t-shirt from scratch and launching a satellite.
Planet Money has received significant critical acclaim, including a 2016Peabody Award for its investigation into theWells Fargo account fraud scandal. Its episodes are frequently used as educational resources in university-level economics courses for their ability to translate academic concepts into accessible stories.
The podcast was created byAlex Blumberg andAdam Davidson after the success of "The Giant Pool of Money," an episode they recorded forThis American Life.[2]Planet Money was launched on September 6, 2008, to cover the2008 financial crisis in the wake of thefederal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In early 2020,Planet Money celebrated its 1000th episode, bringing back many former hosts and contributors to mark the occasion.[3]
The length of the podcasts ranges between 6–30 minutes.Planet Money uses abridged narratives to tackle popular, complex topics likeAmerican health care[4] orinsider trading.[5] 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.[6]
Planet Money provides regular reports forMorning Edition andAll Things Considered and occasional episodes forThis American Life.Planet Money was the first to report the small print in theEmergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that allowed deviation from the originalPaulson plan.[7] SenatorMax Baucus praised the show's attempts to explain the financial crisis "in terms the average American starts to understand".[8]Planet Money episodes have been incorporated intoundergraduatemicroeconomics andmacroeconomics courses at some universities.[9][10]
Planet Money was involved in an NPR series about theWells Fargo account fraud scandal, which earned NPR a2016 Peabody Award.[11] The podcast also won best podcast at the 2015 RAIN Internet Radio Awards.[12]
In 2012,Planet Money asked five economists (Dean Baker,Russ Roberts,Katherine Baicker,Luigi Zingales andRobert H. Frank) from across the spectrum to put together a "No-Brainer Economic Platform". The policies were:
In 2017,The Indicator, hosted byPlanet Money's Stacey Vanek Smith and theFinancial Times' Cardiff Garcia, was launched asPlanet Money's first spin-off podcast.[15] With a similar storytelling approach, it delivers faster, shorter, more frequent podcasts. The podcast, which publishes every weekday, breaks down big ideas usingPlanet Money's style of witty entertainment-journalism. Each episode is approximately 10 minutes or less.
On February 28, 2018, the first episode ofPlanet Money Shorts was released.[16]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 theirYouTube channel.
In 2020,Planet Money began posting videos onTikTok and also joined the platform's #LearnOnTikTok initiative which paid creators and publishers to post education content on the platform.[17][18][19] In 2021, the account was nominated for aWebby Award in the "Education & Discovery, Social Video (Social)" category.[20]
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 tradingTwitter bot.[1] Inspired by the bookThe Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy byPietra Rivoli, thePlanet Money team made a t-shirt and followed the shirt in a step-by-step journey from resource production to manufacturing.[21] The design for the shirt was a squirrel holding a martini glass, which was meant to reference the economistJohn Maynard Keynes' phrase for the human elements in economics, the "animal spirits."[21] More than 25,000 of the shirts were sold online. The t-shirts were sold as part of aKickstarter campaign became an unexpected runaway hit, raising more than 10 times their original goal of $50,000.[22] Executive producerAlex Blumberg worked withPietra Rivoli as project advisor, and Kainaz Amaria, Brian Boyer, andJoshua Davis were managing producers.
ThePlanet Money team also attempted to buy the rights to lesser-knownMarvel Comics characterDoorman for $10,000.[23] After meeting withGene Luen Yang to talk about his reboot of thepublic domain characterGreen Turtle, the team decided to adapt the fellow public domain character Micro-Face.[24] A 24-page comic was written byAlex Segura, with interior art byJamal Igle, lettering by Taylor Esposito, coloring by Ellie Wright, and cover art byJerry Ordway.[25]
'The Giant Pool of Money'—the hour-longThis American Life episode that explained the housing bust and gave rise to Planet Money—was just named one of the top 10 works of U.S. journalism of the past decade.