NPR/PRI-produced program on housing crisis a hit

Ira Glass’s Public Radio International program This American Life usually gets five to 10 comments per show, but after “Giant Pool of Money,” a May 9 special on the housing crisis produced in partnership with NPR’s All Things Considered, the program received nearly 100 listener comments, reports NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard. ATC was also flooded with comments. Shepard lauds the producers for telling the story–13 minutes on ATC and a full hour on TAL–in a “fascinating, compelling way that anyone can understand.” The reporters “take you, the listener, along on their reporting journey where you meet (and in some cases may even like) the people who did the borrowing, the bundling, the loaning, the deceiving and the profiting–until it becomes clear that everyone involved is culpable,” she says. Listen to the ATC report here and the TAL report here.