Karen Duffin
Karen Duffin (she/her) is a co-host and reporter for Planet Money, NPR's award-winning podcast that finds creative, entertaining ways to make sense of the big, complicated forces that move our economy. She joined the team in March 2018.
Before that, she was a producer at This American Life. She also worked for several years as an independent producer, reporting stories for shows like Radiolab, More Perfect, Reply All, The Moth, Pop-Up Magazine, On the Media, and others. Karen has also been a Moth story coach and mainstage storyteller, and has taught radio at the Columbia, NYU, and CUNY Graduate Schools of Journalism.
Her stories blend in-depth reporting with narrative storytelling about everything from the death penalty to the world's largest treehouse, America's first major interrogation program, the Patriot Act, and San Francisco's "Spider-Man" burglar.
Before becoming a journalist, Karen spent several years as a speechwriter, working in more than 20 countries.
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Back in the 90s, the federal government ran a bold experiment, giving people vouchers to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods into low-poverty ones. They wanted to test if housing policy could be hope – whether an address change alone could improve jobs, earnings and education. The answer to that seems obvious. But it did not at all turn out as they expected. Years later, when new researchers went back to the data on this experiment, they stumbled on something big. Something that is changing housing policy across the country today. Today's episode was originally hosted by Karen Duffin, produced by Aviva DeKornfeld, and edited by Bryant Urstadt. The update was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sean Saldana and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Our supervising executive producer is Alex Goldmark.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. -
More and more digital billboards are popping up around the U.S. Many are tracking us through our cell phones — similar to what happens online. Here's a close look at one in Times Square.
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When Iraqi photojournalist Kamaran Najm was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014, his journalist friends and his conservative religious family had to work together to try to find him.
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A Norwegian plane that made an emergency landing in Iran is stranded, due to unintended effects of U.S. sanctions. The plane needs new engine parts, but importing them is prohibited by the sanctions.
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Many websites make a business of posting mugshots, then charging those people to take them down, but it's hard to stop. The reasons have to do with how First Amendment freedoms are protected.
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Two economics reporters drive the length of an event known as The World's Longest Yard Sale — stretching from Alabama to Michigan — in search of economic wisdom. They discover a truth of behavioral economics and a couple French records, too.
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As the Supreme Court is set to rule on two gerrymandering cases, NPR's Planet Money looks at how one political consultant changed the national maps by investing in state elections.
