This American Life is a weekly public radio show, heard by 2.2 million people on more than 500 stations. Another 1.5 million people download the weekly podcast. It is hosted by Ira Glass, produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards.
The things we break and the ones we can't fix.
Prologue: Ira tells the stories of three things that broke–two of them in his own family. (8 minutes)Act One: A teenage whiz kid invents a new toy for Milton Bradley. Then the trouble starts. (28 minutes)A...
People waking up to the fact that the world has suddenly changed.
Prologue: Jackson Landers tells the story of a very strange decision he made one summer day. (6 minutes)Act One: Elena Kostyuchenko tells the story of how she was probably poisoned after...
A series of phone calls to a man in Gaza named Yousef Hammash, between early December and now. He talks about what he and his family are experiencing, sometimes as they are experiencing it.
Act One: Over the course of one week in December, Yousef tries...
Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about.
Prologue: A family sits down to discuss one thing. But then the true purpose of the meeting emerges. (9 ½ minutes)Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where...
An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else.
Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Tobin Low about the question he got asked after he and his boyfriend moved in together, and what he thinks pe...
What it means to have words—and to lose them.
Prologue: Sometimes we don’t want to say what’s going on because putting it into words would make it real. At other times, words don’t seem to capture the weight of what we want to say. Susanna Fogel talks ...
People finding themselves in situations that are worse than they thought and deciding to really go with it.
Prologue: A Boston woman takes her dog for a walk and suddenly finds herself in a terrible situation she never anticipated. The strange thing is...
Often we see someone’s situation from the outside and think we know exactly what’s going on. This week, we get inside and find out just how much more interesting the reality of it is.
A mysterious tunnel is found in a forest in Toronto. Public speculat...
A major political party in a major swing state bets on a new leader: a total political outsider. How does that work out for them?
Prologue: In 2022, Michigan Republicans ran anti-establishment candidates who claimed the last presidential election was s...
One of our producers, Chana Joffe-Walt, had a series of conversations with a man in Gaza over the course of one week. They're so immediate – and particular to this moment in the war in Gaza – that we're bringing them to you now, outside of our regular ...