NPR's Planet Money looking to expand

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

NPR’s multimedia project covering the global economy, Planet Money, is looking to hire two to three new staff members, including an executive producer, as it nears its one-year anniversary.

The hires, which are expected to occur between October and March 2010, will expand the Planet Money staff to eight or nine journalists, said Ellen Weiss, senior vice president of news for NPR.

Launched in September 2008, Planet Money’s podcast is  downloaded more than 1 million times each month and the blog gets approximately 400,000 page views per month.

“As the year went by, it became a success with the audience, a success with its reputation journalistically, not just with the economic community but with the journalism community, and also a success in terms of generating a revenue,” said Weiss. “NPR came to the conclusion that this would be a good investment to make.  So the first job we’re posting is kind of the most important, is hiring someone to manage.”

Adam Davidson, the NPR reporter who has been the editorial director for Planet Money, hopes to spend more time reporting in the future once the new staff people are hired.

“For everyone in business journalism, it has been a crazy year, hurling youself forward without building structures,” said Davidson. “What I’m excited about with the new positions is that with the acute phase of the economy behind us, we can consolidate and build this as a sustainable team.”

Davidson said that he expects Planet Money’s focus to expand to broader stories such as how the global economy affects the United States in the coming months.

Planet Money’s current staff has been borrowed and loaned from other NPR operations in the past year. They are now permanently assigned to the operation.

“For your audience, this job is a great opportunity,” said Davidson. “While we have done a lot and coalesced as a team, this is an opportunity for someone to help craft and shape a really new exciting approach to business and economic storytelling.”

NPR is planning a series of stories about regulation of business next month to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Planet Money.