Planet Money

Planet Money
Name	Planet Money
Genre	Economics, News, Documentary
Creator	Alex Blumberg, Adam Davidson
Developer	NPR
Language	English language
Country	United States
Airdate	September 6, 2008 – present
Related	This American Life, The Indicator from Planet Money

Planet Money. It is a popular podcast and radio segment that makes complex economic concepts accessible and entertaining for a general audience. Launched in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the program uses narrative storytelling to explain how the global economy works, from international trade to personal finance. It is produced by NPR and has become a flagship audio brand, known for its creative explanations and investigative reporting.

History and background

The program was created in 2008 by journalists Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson, who were reporting on the subprime mortgage crisis for the public radio show This American Life. Their landmark episode, "The Giant Pool of Money", which explained the housing bubble, demonstrated a high demand for clear economic storytelling. With support from NPR, the project officially launched as a weekly podcast, quickly gaining a dedicated following. The founding team aimed to build a "Mission: Impossible" style squad to tackle economic mysteries, a spirit that continues to inform its production. Its creation was part of a broader movement within public radio to innovate with on-demand audio and reach new, digitally-native audiences.

Format and content

Episodes typically run between 15 and 30 minutes and employ a highly produced, narrative-driven format. The show is famous for using imaginative analogies and tangible experiments to illustrate abstract ideas, such as buying 100 barrels of crude oil to explain futures markets or following a T-shirt around the world to demonstrate global supply chains. Content ranges from explaining macroeconomic policies of the Federal Reserve to exploring microeconomic issues in daily life, like the cost of prison commissary items. The tone is conversational and often humorous, with producers and hosts actively participating in the stories they tell, whether visiting a bubble gum factory in Turkey or attempting to start their own offshore company.

Production and team

The production is headquartered at NPR's offices in New York City and Washington, D.C., with a team of reporters, producers, and editors. Notable past and present contributors include Robert Smith, Stacey Vanek Smith, Jacob Goldstein, Mary Childs, and Kenny Malone. The team operates with significant editorial independence, often embarking on long-term investigative projects that require extensive travel and research. Collaboration with other NPR programs like Morning Edition and All Things Considered is common, with shortened versions of stories often airing on those flagship newsmagazines. The production process emphasizes deep reporting and creative sound design to build engaging audio documentaries.

Impact and reception

It has been widely praised for democratizing economic knowledge and has won several major journalism awards, including the Gerald Loeb Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, and multiple National Magazine Awards. Its model of explanatory journalism has influenced a generation of audio producers and podcasters. The show consistently ranks among the top podcasts on the Apple Podcasts charts and has cultivated a large, international audience. Academic economists, including Nobel laureates, have praised its accuracy and clarity, and its episodes are frequently used as teaching tools in high school and university classrooms across the United States.

Notable episodes and series

Several episodes have achieved notable fame and impact. The "Planet Money T-Shirt Project" was a multi-part series that followed the creation of a shirt from Mississippi cotton fields to Bangladesh factories. "The Island of Stone Money" explored the concept of fiat currency through the story of massive stone coins on Yap. A series on the Venezuela hyperinflation crisis included an episode where reporters attempted to order 100 dollars worth of bolívares. Another popular episode, "The Oil Kingdom," investigated the inner workings of Saudi Aramco and the Petrodollar system. The show also produced a popular series explaining the origins and implications of Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Related media and spin-offs

The success led to the creation of a daily, shorter podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money, which offers quick explanations of economic news. Team members have also authored popular books, such as *The New Kings of Coke* by Owen Thomas and *NPR's Planet Money* guides. The program's style directly inspired the creation of other explanatory podcasts within NPR, like The Sunday Story and has contributed segments to television programs including ABC News. Its archive of over a thousand episodes serves as a vast public resource on economic history, covering events from the Greek government-debt crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic recession.

Category:NPR podcasts Category:American economics podcasts Category:2008 podcast debuts