Cynthia Xie

Adrian Ma, host of NPR’s “The Indicator from Planet Money” podcast presented in a Oeconomia speaker event via Zoom. “We often respond to the news by thinking about what business-related questions we can answer that are adjacent to it so the next time the story pops up in somebody’s feed, they feel a bit more informed about what it means,” Ma said.

“The Indicator from Planet Money” podcast host Adrian Ma presented and answered questions about his journey into economics journalism at Oeconomia’s speaker event on Tuesday.

Ma talked about his experience on the podcast of relating current events in the news to more complex economic concepts. From explaining the beginning of the inflation problem in 2021 to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, he encouraged students to scour the news for their own topics of interest.

“Instead of trying to get every little development of a story, we’re just trying to break down the economic concepts,” Ma said. “We often respond to the news by thinking about what business-related questions we can answer that are adjacent to it so the next time the story pops up in somebody’s feed, they feel a bit more informed about what it means. We want to provide a window to these topics because our goal is to try and make it accessible to everyone.”

Since Ma regularly interviews economists on the podcast, he shared insights on typical questions he asks so that everyday people can understand. He explained strategies he uses, from asking open-ended questions to creating a more casual, conversational environment with his interviewees.

“For economists, because they are often super knowledgeable and explaining complicated things, I’ll say to them from the outset of the interview, feel free to have fun, feel free to make jokes or be sarcastic,” Ma said. “I’ll ask them if they could repeat what they say without using this jargon term and say it in a way that you feel that we feel is going to be more understandable to people.”

Oeconomia president Andy Chung (12), who listens to “The Indicator” on a weekly basis, invited Ma to speak in hopes that other students might gain new insights from hearing about the little-known field of economics journalism.

“He gave a really great explanation on how he got into economics and journalism and how he’s been conducting research and doing interviews,” Andy said. “He’s done a wide range of reporting, so it was cool that we have this selection of speakers to choose from.”

Ma entered the world of journalism through a media law program at the University of Maryland School of Law. After working for a Baltimore federal judge, he transitioned into reporting for public radio stations in Boston, Cleveland and New York City. At “The Indicator,” he works to make the field of economics more approachable through lively episodes and connections to other topics.

“The Indicator is a comparatively more ragtag operation compared to newspapers,” Ma said. “It’s actually been a really enjoyable way for me to talk about a lot of different subjects. If you can find some economic connection to a topic, then you can also talk about politics and sports and art and things you wouldn’t be able to talk about if you were focused more narrowly.”

Attendee Laya Sunkara (10) found Ma’s talk to be informative and helpful for interviewing and reporting about a variety of subjects.

“It was really interesting to gain insight into the life of a podcast host and get some advice from someone who does this for a living,” Laya said. “It’s really cool to see different jobs that we don’t really see as much at Harker and see that perspective.”