This grant supports the production of Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda, a weekly podcast where the internationally acclaimed actor and science communicator interviews the nation’s leading intellectuals, scientists, artists, advocates, and thinkers.  Grant funds will support seven episodes of Clear+Vivid, now in its 14th season, to allow Alda to conduct interviews with scientists on a range of interesting and socially relevant topics, including AI, social cognition, brain trauma, robotics, neuroscience, psychiatry and optogenetics, philosophy in science, and forgetfulness. Episodes will be released through major podcasting platforms, on Clear+Vivid’s feed, and will be promoted by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, the nation’s leading science communication research, training, and education organization. The episodes will be released in late 2021 and early 2022.

This grant supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) new podcast series, How to Fix the Internet, which explores the challenges posed by big tech and what consumers can do to protect themselves and their privacy and security. EFF is an international digital rights group focusing on technical tools, litigation, and public education. Over the course of two seasons of ten one-hour episodes, its new podcast will give listeners an awareness of and appreciation for the technologies that surround us every day, the policies and choices embedded in those technologies, and the role of corporations and laws in steering our digital world—allowing people to make more informed choices as they gain a deeper understanding of new technologies.

This grant continues core operational support for the production and broadcast of Planet Money, National Public Radio’s (NPR) award winning media brand devoted to the production of accurate, accessible, and engaging reporting on the American economy. Planet Money is best known for its acclaimed twice-weekly podcasts, which take deep dives into the latest economic news and reached over one million downloads per episode during their first month. More recently, Planet Money launched a new, short-form economics podcast, The Indicator, which is produced daily and allows them to be more responsive to the news cycle. To date, The Indicator averages over 350,000 downloads in its first month, which brings the total monthly audience for Planet Money podcasts to nearly 1.4 million listeners. Grant funds will allow Planet Money to continue the production of more than 300 podcast episodes per year—approximately 100 new episodes of Planet Money and approximately 200 new episodes of The Indicator—as well as five to six episodes of its online video series, Planet Money Shorts, and 150 TikTok videos each year.

This grant provides three years of support for the production and distribution of Science Friday, the only regular weekly show on public radio devoted to all things science. Hosted by Ira Flatow and reaching a weekly audience of some two million through radio, streaming, social media, and the web, Science Friday is a uniquely powerful platform for advancing the public understanding of science. Supported activities over the grant period include production and distribution of 150 radio segments for broadcast; 12 to 18 digital videos; 36 digital pieces in the popular SciCandy series on photography; continued production of the biweekly Science Friday newsletter, Science Diction; the hosting of three live events in the “Science Goes to the Movies” series; and continuation of the Sci Arts Book Club. Additional grant funds support outreach and engagement activities to publicize Science Friday content and broaden its audience.

This grant provides one year of support to the PBS NewsHour to continue its regular broadcast of Making Sen$e with Paul Solman, a biweekly segment that explains business and economic issues clearly and engagingly to a general audience both on air and online. Grant funds support the production of 25 7-to-10-minute Making Sen$e broadcast segments on major issues facing the American and global economy, such as how populism and the Trump administration are reshaping economic policy, how to interpret the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report, how the Federal Reserve works, the impact of new corporate tax breaks on the deficit, and trends in the job market, wages, and money management. Additional grant funds will support the production of hundreds of original pieces of web native content that deepen and extend the issued covered in Solman’s on-air segments.