Alex Blumberg and the This American Life crew at the 68th Annual Peabody Awards for The Giant Pool of Money

Adam Davidson (born 1970) is an American journalist. He was a co-founder of NPR's

Planet Money ''Planet Money'' is an American podcast and blog produced by NPR. Using "creative and entertaining" dialogue and narrative, ''Planet Money'' claims to be "The Economy Explained." History The podcast was created by Alex Blumberg and Adam Davids ...

program. Previously he has covered

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...

issues, the Asian tsunami, and the

war in Iraq This is a list of wars involving the Republic of Iraq and its predecessor states. Other armed conflicts involving Iraq * Wars during Mandatory Iraq ** Ikhwan raid on South Iraq 1921 * Smaller conflicts, revolutions, coups and periphery confli ...

, for which he won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. He and Adam McKay were former co-hosts of Surprisingly Awesome from

Gimlet Media Gimlet Media LLC is a digital media company and podcast network, focused on producing narrative podcasts and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The company was founded in 2014 by Alex Blumberg and Matthew Lieber, who serve as the company's CE ...

. Davidson worked as an economics columnist for ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' and in 2016 took a position at ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''.

Early life and education

Davidson's father, Jack Davidson, was a film and television actor, and he grew up in the

Westbeth Artists Community Westbeth Artists Housing is a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and arts organizations in New York City. The complex comprises the full city block bounded by West, Be ...

in Manhattan's

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to th ...

. He attended college at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, graduating in 1992. Adam is an atheist of Jewish descent.

Career

Davidson worked at PRI as a Middle East correspondent for ''Marketplace'' and then went on to work at NPR as the international business and economics correspondent. In 2008, Davidson, along with

Alex Blumberg Alex Blumberg is an American entrepreneur, radio journalist, former producer for public radio and television, best known for his work with '' This American Life'', ''Planet Money'', and '' How to Save a Planet''. He is the co-founder and CEO of t ...

founded ''

'' on NPR. He went on to write for the New York ''Times Magazine'' as an economics columnist. In 2016, he joined ''The New Yorker'' as a staff writer. By 2021, he had left that position, but remained a contributing writer to the magazine. About a NewsGuild unionization drive which was promising to protect New Yorker writers from firings and unwanted editorial input, Davidson summed up the writers' consensus opinion, saying “None of us want to do anything that could jeopardize the magazine we love. We don’t want so strong a union that mediocrity reigns and it’s impossible to get rid of poor performers. We actually kind of like the feeling that we need to continue to earn our place."

Awards

Davidson won the

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

in Radio Reporting for his reporting with

for a May 2008 show titled "

The Giant Pool of Money "The Giant Pool of Money" is an episode of the radio show ''This American Life'' which originally aired on May 9, 2008. The episode described to a general audience the causes and factors which led to the subprime mortgage crisis. Specifically, the ...

". The piece explained the highly complex chain of events that led to the subprime mortgage crisis by showcasing interviews with participants at each sector of the crisis. The episode was linked widely in the blogosphere and remains one of the show's most-downloaded podcasts.

Bibliography

* * * *Online version is titled "Trump's business of corruption". *

References

External links

*
Adam Davidson
at ''

'' American male journalists NPR personalities Living people American podcasters The New Yorker staff writers 1970 births 20th-century American journalists 21st-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers University of Chicago alumni {{US-radio-bio-stub